


You're Not Going Turbo, Are You?

by Starkvenger



Series: Half-Life VR But The AI Have Fanfiction [1]
Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Basically the science team going into different video games, Canon-Typical Violence, Computer Programming, Dimension Travel, Don't @ Me, Dysfunctional Family, Fluff and Angst, G-Man Being Creepy and Mysterious, Gen, HLVRAI, Half-Life VR But the AI is Self-Aware, I'm Bad At Tagging, Jealousy, M/M, No Gordon Tag Cause the Fandoms Are Still Combined, Not Beta Read We Die Like Coomer Clones, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Post-Game(s), Team Bonding, Team as Family, The Player is Wyatt, The Science Team, This fandom has brain rot, This is me realizing I mainly play non-linear open story games, Video & Computer Games, Video Game Mechanics, Yes That's a WRTV Reference, but that's ok, oh well, video game references
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:21:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 44,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26135686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starkvenger/pseuds/Starkvenger
Summary: The game is over- he won. The player finally beat Half-Life VR; but Dr. Coomer's last message was still weighing on him.Maybe the fun could last for just alittlelonger.ON HIATUS! (10/30/2020)
Relationships: Benrey & Gordon Freeman, Bubby & Gordon Freeman, Bubby/Dr. Coomer (Half-Life), Dr. Coomer & Gordon Freeman, Gordon Freeman & the Science Team, Tommy Coolatta & Gordon Freeman
Series: Half-Life VR But The AI Have Fanfiction [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1892632
Comments: 224
Kudos: 207





	1. Which One Of Us Is The Programming Major?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gordon- or, Wyatt, as that's his real name, contemplates his life after finishing his most recent playthrough of a strange, modded version of Half-Life. 
> 
> The AI were alive- a revelation that shook him to his core and that he'd have to fully process later. Dr. Coomer said something about moving them to another game...
> 
> Maybe he could work with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yooooooooooo- we're staying on his train cause fuck it why not. it's the main thing that makes me happy right now, who cares if it's a bit cringe? Call me Red Cringeman.
> 
> Anywho, enjoy this stream of consciousness.
> 
> ALSO, I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT CODING, I'M SO SORRY I'M PULLING THIS OUT OF MY ASS-

\- - -

Wyatt pulled the VR headset from his head, running a hand through the hair that stuck to his forehead with sweat. He sat back in his chair with a soft sigh, staring at the screen as the lime green text signaling Dr. Coomer's words faded from the blackened screen. He let out a shaky sigh, chewing on his bottom lip in thought. 

That entire experience had shaken him to his very core. To learn that the NPCs inside his game weren't, in fact, NPCs, but living, fully sentient AI with a complex array of emotions and thoughts? 

Yeah, his reality was kind of turned upside down. That kind of thing wasn't even supposed to be possible. It was like some plot out of Star Trek or Terminator or a third sci-fi movie- this kind of thing was decades, if not _centuries_ out from the technology of today. It wasn't the kind of thing that was supposed to exist in _2020._

_And yet here it was,_ he thought, shaking his head as the screen shifted from an empty, black space to the main title screen. Wyatt wondered briefly if the Science team had been sent into some kind of stasis when the game changed to the main menu. He wouldn't dare start a new game, who knows what that could do to the AI's- it could jack up their code or tear them in half or something.

He didn't know, he wasn't some coding genius. The closest thing he could do, if you could even call it that, was knowing how to install mods in Minecraft of all things, and it wasn't like that took any _real_ amount of coding. He just moved folders around and extracted them inside of other folders.

The young man sighed again, something he'd found himself doing often when dealing with the antics of the violent AI's, and glanced at his headset. Dr. Coomer had said something about taking them out of the game, but Wyatt had no idea where to even start with something like that. He didn't want to mess them up- what if they were in some kind of post-game sandbox world and didn't even need to be extracted?

Another thought betrayed this line of thinking. Coomer himself didn't know what would happen to them after the game ended- it was more likely that the team was put into some kind of limbo or something, frozen in time until he was able to get their code out of the game.

_Which he didn't know how to do!_

The brunet found himself pulling his phone from his pants pocket and scrolling through Instagram absently, chewing on his lip as he tried to come up with a way to solve this predicament. Maybe he could hire somebody to move the code into a folder or something? 

That'd fix the problem of them being stuck in Half-Life, but that didn't really help him with getting their code into something else. It wasn't like there were just robots lying around he could put them inside of- the closest thing he had was a dusty old iDog that he wasn't even sure worked properly anymore. 

Another few lazy swipes of the thumb across the screen before he paused at the sight of something he recognized. He furrowed his brow at the sight of a black-haired man with a wide grin and a manic look in his eyes as he posed beside a disassembled circuit board with a thumbs up. Soda cans littered the table behind him, along with various wires, circuitry and small tools.

He had on the most hideous and ratty sweatshirt, complete with slightly faded white lettering that read simply **"Respawn, Bitch"** and dark stubble that covered his face. Wyatt blinked, bringing a hand up to smack it against his face.

Of course- how could he be so stupid?!

He'd _taken_ that photo!

Wyatt tossed his phone onto his desk and got up out of his chair, leaving his room in a mad dash and thundering down the stairs and into the living room. He crossed the room without more than a spare glance towards the TV, which was busy playing youtube videos of some guy with bright green hair yelling at his game, and knocked on the door on the other side of the room.

"Barney, you in there?" he asked, pressing an ear to the door. At the sound of a groan, Wyatt shook his head and opened the door. "Barney, wake up man- I need a favor to ask of you," he said, glancing towards his housemate's desk to find the same torn apart circuitry littering the thing. When the man didn't move from his bed, Wyatt grabbed the closest thing to him, which just so happened to be an empty Mountain Dew can, and lobbed it at his head.

There was a light thunk and the raven lifted his head from under the covers to narrow his eyes drowsily at the shorter man. "Did you just attack me with soda?" he asked groggily, shifting in bed to sit up slightly. "Low blow, dude."

"Get up, I need your help with something," Wyatt repeated, crossing the room and nearly tripping on the cables that crisscrossed the floor before reaching the bed and grabbing Barney's arm. "Come on-" he grunted, tugging uselessly on the much bigger man.

"Whoa, dude, calm down- what's the rush? Somethin' on fire?" the raven-haired man asked as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood. "Cause if so, I swear it ain't my fault this time," he added, stifling a yawn as Wyatt dragged him from the bedroom and into the living room. "Oh hey, Spedicey's on," he said, glancing towards the TV as Wyatt got behind the man and tried to shove him up the stairs.

"Yeah, that's great- come on, can you please move your big feet?"

"Dude, you haven't even told me what you need me to do. Is it lifting? Cause if it's lifting you know I gotta stretch first, bro."

"It's not lifting. I need you to do something to my computer," Wyatt said, still struggling to get the larger man to move up the stairs. He was standing resolutely at the bottom, one hand on the railing as the much smaller and lankier Wyatt tried to push him up the first step. 

"No way, dude- the Dark Web ain't shit to play around with," Barney said, side-stepping the brunet and causing him to fall face-first onto the carpeted stairs.

A groan, slightly muffled by the soft material covering the step, and Wyatt was lifting his head and looking up at Barney. "It's not that. It's like- coding stuff. I don't know how to do that," He said, clambering up from the floor. "I need you to move some NPC's from Half-Life into a folder or something and put it on my desktop," he said, setting his hands on his hips as he spoke. "Could you do that for me? _Please?"_

A sigh from Barney and Wyatt was grinning. The man ran a hand over his face before starting up the stairs, the smaller man following behind giddily. He was actually going to be able to get the team out- now he just needed to figure out what to do with them. 

The pair went into Wyatt room and the brunet scrambled around Barney in order to wake the computer back up. "Can you like, put them in a folder that I can put into another game? Is that possible?" he asked, watching as the larger man took a seat in his chair and grabbed the mouse before raising a brow at him.

"Why the Hell do you wanna put Half-Life NPC's in another game, dude?"

"Uh...I uh...I just...got attached?" he tried, only to get a more confused look from his roommate. It wasn't like he could tell Barney they were AI- he'd either A, think he was fucking with him and wasting his time, or B, flip out and demand to study them or take them apart or meet them. 

And none of those options sounded like a very pleasant time for him _or_ the Science Team.

"Is this like the time you got attached to that frog on the back porch and insisted we make him a house, only for him to never show up again?" Barney asked as he opened the game files for Half-Life up on Wyatt's desktop. The brunet pouted, thinking about Mr. Lilypad and the perfectly nice home he'd made for him- only to be rejected by the little frog. 

"Anyway, it's a lot more complicated than that. I can put them all in a folder, but it's better if I work out how to put them into another game so you don't end up jacking up the NPC's _or_ the game you're trying to put them in," Barney said, opening up the console and typing a few things out before furrowing his brow. "What the Hell?"

"What, is something wrong?"

"No, no...its just weird. These three NPC's, in particular, have some really weird coding. Its like, more complex than a simple NPC should be...way more complex. Look, it keeps re-writing itself," he said, pointing to a small section of code that was consistently shifting letters and numbers.

"Oh, uh yeah- there's...uh, mods. Installed. Dialogs ones and uh, ones that let you make the NPC's into followers," Wyatt said nervously- hopefully, that could serve as some kind of explanation? he wasn't the programming major here, so he was really pulling this out of thin air. 

"Must be some pretty beefy mods to make the code do this, dude," Barney replied, shaking his head. "Not sure if they'll stay attached to the NPC's if I move 'em outta Half-Life," he said with another glance towards Wyatt. "Still want me to do it?"

Hopefully, since the constantly shifting code wasn't _actually_ mods, the AI's would be alright. He could only hope. "...Yeah," he breathed, realizing his voice was shaky and a chill was currently running down his spine at the thought of losing these programs that were so important to him.

These _people._ These _people_ were so important to him.

"Yeah, do it," he said, wringing his hands nervously as Barney kept typing. He highlighted some bits of code before typing some more, and brought everything into a single folder on his desktop. 

"There we go- oh wait, looks like I missed one," he said, furrowing his brow slightly. "You want this one in there too? It looks a little messed up. Might corrupt the other files, but I can still move it if you want," Barney said, causing Wyatt to lean in closer to the screen and stare at the code.

He glanced towards the directory, finding the tag 'B3NR3_ANT' and smiling softly to himself. He knew that bastard had to have survived somehow. "Yeah, put him in there too. Why not?" he said, leaning back and getting an odd glance from his roommate before the man shook his head and repeated the process with this set of code.

"Alright, where you want them?" Barney asked as he leaned back in Wyatt's chair and clasped his hands behind his head. "Fallout? DBH? Uhm...PayDay?" He listed off names, glancing towards the brunet with a raised eyebrow. 

The smaller of the two thought for a moment, biting down on his knuckle in thought. He needed something easy, a place where the AI's could roam around without too much trouble and preferably without too many hard-set rules for them to break. At least until they got used to not being inside their own game, that is.

"Let's..." he started speaking before even really knowing what he was going to say. A cursory glance at his desktop and he grinned. "Let's put 'em in Minecraft."

Barney's other eyebrow joined its brother in climbing up the man's forehead as he stared at Wyatt incredulously. " _Minecraft?_ Really?" he asked, only to get a slightly excited nod from the brunet.

Minecraft was _perfect_ for their first- or, uh, second, game.

"Alright, you're the boss..." Barney said, turning his attention back towards the screen and pulling up Minecraft's game files.

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any suggestions for games to put this band of violent misfits in? I have a couple in mind, but i'm more than open the suggestions!
> 
> Alos yes. Wyatt's name is a WayneRadioTV reference.
> 
> ALSO also; yes, I too have a dusty old iDog that I'm not sure even works properly anymore.


	2. Minecraft PART 1/3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wyatt- or, Gordon, for the Science Team's sake, logs into Minecraft and creates a new world.
> 
> Here's hoping the group isn't too disoriented.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> am I really making Minecraft fanfic right now--
> 
> does-
> 
> does this count as Minecraft fanfic?????
> 
> ...help me

\- - -

**"Alright, you're the boss..." Barney said, turning his attention back towards the screen and pulling up Minecraft's game files.**

\- - -

After Barney was done, he stood up and turned the chair towards the smaller man. "All yours- just start a new world and the NPC's should be there. Not sure if they'll still follow you around or have those dynamic dialog mods or anything, but they're there," he said, ruffling the brunet's hair as he took a seat.

"Hey, easy with the hair, man," Wyatt said, shoving the larger man's hand away with a grin. "Thanks, Barney," he said, grabbing the headset and pulling it down over his eyes. The raven grinned and shook his head, turning to leave the room.

"No problem, bro," he said, closing the door behind him and leaving Wyatt to his game.

The brunet pulled up the game and logged in, moving hiss cursor to start up a new game, breezing past the customization in favor of getting to what he was really there for. He stood and shoved his chair back slightly, making it so that the thing wasn't in his way as the world loaded.

His heart was hammering against his chest as the bright green square in the middle of his screen spiraled outward. He hadn't realized how nervous he was until now- what if this didn't work? What would he do then? He didn't know how to write code, much less how to fix AI-

He let out a shaky breath as the world suddenly popped into existence, dropping him on a grassy hill surrounded by trees and flowers. "Okay..." he said slowly, looking around in an attempt to get used to the blocky game in VR while simultaneously falling back into the role of 'Gordon Freeman'. "Uhm...Science team? You guys...here?" he asked slowly, unsurely, as his heart continued to pound in his chest.

It was weird that something like _Minecraft_ got his blood pumping but...these were his friends. No matter what game they were in, it gave him a rush to think about them.

The distinct sound of crunching grass sounded out behind him, causing the brunet to turn around. He found a character model that looked vaguely like Dr. Coomer jumping over a block and making somewhat of a waving motion.

"Hello, Gordon!" the man said happily, and Gordon wasn't sure he'd ever been happier to hear those two words. A smile broke out on his face as the elderly man came closer. "I see you found a spare floppy disk after all!" he said happily before glancing around.

"Though I can't say I'm very impressed with the game you've chosen for us, Gordon. When was this game made?" he asked with a raise of the brow- something that Gordon was definitely not going to question how he accomplished in Minecraft, no thank you- only to get a chuckle from the player.

"2009. Don't worry- it's meant to look like this. Supposed to be reminiscent of legos or building blocks or something," Gordon explained with a smile. "Have you seen anyone else? I'm assuming you guys all managed to spawn here safely," he said, only to spot a notification in the bottom left corner of his vision. 

**JOHNWICKLOVER1994 HAS DROWNED.**

Gordon snorted- he wasn't sure exactly who that was, but he had a sneaking suspicion that it was Benry for some reason. The poor guy must've spawned in an ocean or something. "We should try and find the others," the brunet said, glancing towards Dr. Coomer as he inspected a flower on the ground. "Fun fact, Dr. Coomer- this entire game is built around the principle of hitting things and using said things to make more stuff."

The older man gave him a confused look, causing Gordon to smile and shake his head. "Go punch that tree."

"Now Gordon, we can't take out our aggressions on the local flora and fauna. It's been ages since I saw a tree in its natural habitat, and I don't think it's-"

The man paused when the block Gordon had started punching vanished into thin air and dropped a floating, smaller version of said block. The scientist's eyes widened as Gordon picked up the log. " _FUCK_ THE LOCAL FLORA AND FAUNA!" he yelled happily, rearing his fist back and slamming into the trunk of an oak tree. It shook for a moment before vanishing completely- leaves and all.

Gordon blinked- sure, there were mods that made that happen but he had vanilla just to make sure none of them interfered with the AI's... He watched as Coomer laughed triumphantly and picked up the scattered logs and sticks before turning his attention back towards Gordon. "Well that was a rousing success, I'd say."

"Uhh...yeah, I guess so," he replied with a chuckle, opening his inventory and making a crafting table before setting it down amongst the grass. "This is probably your first time having an inventory, huh Dr. Coomer?" Gordon asked, glancing up from where he'd been arranging the various wooden materials he'd gotten. 

"I have an inventory? But I'm not the player, Gordon," Dr. Coomer said with a furrow of his brow. "I've had a weapon's keyring before, but not an actual inventory, you see."

"I know," the younger man replied with a grin. "Here, do this," he said, making a motion with his hand that caught his own inventory to pull up in front of him. He closed it and glanced towards Coomer, finding him staring in awe at the simple inventory in front of him. 

"There's so much space, Gordon! So much potential for...what's this say... logs! And sticks! and-" he paused, his inventory closing momentarily. "Hello, Gordon!" Coomer said happily before his inventory flickered back into being. "-flowers!"

Gordon chuckled, grabbing a pickaxe from the crafting table before tossing one towards Coomer. "Here, you'll probably need this," he said, watching as the old man picked up the wooden tool. "We should go find the others," he continued as he picked up the crafting table and looked at their surroundings. "Benry's probably in the ocean, considering he just drowned, but I have no idea where the others could be..."

The player paused, furrowing his brow at the sight of a rising pillar of smoke in the distance. Now sure, this could have been an auto-generated lava pit seeping onto some trees, but Gordon had a sinking feeling in his gut that he knew exactly what the source behind that fire was.

"...I think I know where Bubby is, Dr. Coomer," he said, swallowing thickly and taking off in the direction of the smoke. The sound of crunching grass behind him told him that Coomer was following him, and a glance over his shoulder confirmed that fact.

After a couple of minutes of running (and losing two hearts in the process), they finally came upon what they'd been looking for. Bubby was busy cackling with mad delight as he scorched what few trees remained in the clearing he must have spawned into, the light glinting off his glasses as he set a birch tree ablaze. Gordon sighed, feeling a familiar wave of exhaustion mixed with fondness pass over him as Coomer rushed ahead to greet the other scientist.

"Professor Bubby! I see your pyrokinetic abilities have been transferred to this game as well!" he said happily, which got a grin out of the other man as he hugged Dr. Coomer. When he noticed Gordon watching, a faint blush spread across his cheeks.

"Doctor- and of course it did, I wouldn't be perfect had it not," he sneered, though his voice was warm as Coomer entwined their pointer fingers. "Where have you two been? And where's Tommy?"

Gordon chuckled as he came closer to the pair. "We're not sure yet. Benry's probably in the ocean-" he paused when the console lit up again.

**JOHNWICKLOVER1994 HAS DROWNED.**

He sighed, shaking his head. "And obviously he thinks he can still breathe underwater," he said, getting a narrowed-eyed look from Bubby.

"And just what the _Hell_ is Benry doing here? Do you have brain damage or did you just conveniently forget that he tried to kill us all?!" He snapped, brow furrowed as he glared at Gordon. The man didn't take any of it to heart- it was in the AI's nature to be snippy and shrewd. It was all just part of what made Bubby _Bubby_. 

"Look, His code was there when my roommate transferred the files, and despite everything..." he trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck. "Well, sue me for believing in second chances."

"This better not backfire on us, Gordon," was all Bubby could say in return, his voice filled with less malice and more concern and grumpiness. That was easily pushed aside, though, when Coomer squeezed his hand reassuringly.

"Well, gentlemen, I believe we have two more members of the Science Team to find before our party is complete!" Coomer said happily, getting a chuckle out of the player. "Come along, Bubby- we have a Tommy to find!" he continued triumphantly, setting off in a random direction with Bubby in tow. 

That was as good a plan as any- it wasn't like they had a minimap to look at in order to find the lanky man. Gordon followed the pair and smiled as they babbled on about the game, about how nice it was to be in a forest of all things, about what life could hold for them now- it was sweet, and it made Gordon feel all the better that he'd decided to go through with this frankly, insane plan.

He was glad that these guys could be transferred into different games. He was fairly certain that if they'd been simple NPC's this wouldn't have worked in the slightest, but them being AI's must have meant they could adapt to new environments- new entire lines of code. Hell, their models had even been translated into a Minecraft-esque style to better suit the game, something the brunet never would have even thought of.

The youngest of the trio was deep in thought by the time they came to a stop, causing him to bump into the back of Dr. Coomer. "Ngh- oh, sorry Dr. Coomer. Why'd we stop?" he asked, glancing around the pair to find a wolf standing in front of them, simply staring. "Oh, cool, a wolf," he said, side-stepping the older man to get closer to it.

"Gordon, what are you doing!? That thing is a vicious beast-" Bubby said sternly, hand not currently being held by Coomer ablaze, only for Gordon to squat down in front of the animal and pat its head. It barked and took off between the trees, causing the player to laugh.

"Relax, guys. Wolves in this game are fairly harmless, as long as you don't hit them. You can even give 'em bones to tame 'em."

A sudden cacophony of barks caused Gordon to furrowed his brow and glance towards the source- only to find a horde of tamed wolves running towards him excitedly. His eyes widened as he fumbled over himself and landed on his ass in the dirt, the wolves surrounding him and barking happily. "Where the hell did all of you come from?" he asked, glancing around the mob of dogs. There had to be at least 10 of them- 

The distinct sound of crunching grass caused Gordon to glance up again, only to find Tommy come running through the trees with a worried look on his face. "Please- please wait for me!" he called out, arms full of bones as he ran. The player blinked, only to burst out laughing at the right of the lanky man. He flopped over onto the grass and rubbed at his eye, his laughter dying down to chuckles as Dr. Coomer and Bubby greeted Tommy excitedly.

"Glad to see you're in good shape, Tommy!"

"What the Hell are you doing with all these wolves?"

Tommy fumbled with the mass of bones still in his arms and blinked, glancing towards Gordon before looking back at the other two. "Well I- I woke up here and there was a lot of- of wolves around me, and then I saw a skeleton and it started shoot-shooting at me!! So I pulled out my gun and shot it and it dropped all these bones and- and the wolves looked hungry so I gave them a cou-couple and then they started following me-"

Gordon sat up, watching with a bemused smirk on his face. "And so I asked them if they could- uh, if they could find you guys and then they just took off without me!! So I followed them!!" Gordon pulled himself up off the ground as Tommy finished his story, maneuvering around the horde of dogs to pat Tommy on the shoulder. "Here, do this, Tommy," he said, making the same gesture to open his inventory that he'd shown Coomer.

Tommy did, and the bones vanished from his arms and appeared inside his inventory. "Oh thank you Mr. Freeman- I didn't know I even had an inventory," he said with a smile.

"No problem- you all do," he said, glancing towards Bubby to find him doing the same gesture and opening his own inventory. "We should really go find Benry, now that we're all together. There's no telling what kind of trouble he's going to get into without-"

**JOHNWICKLOVER1994 HAS DROWNED.**

The player sighed. "Let's just go find him."

"Onwards and Upwards, Gordon!"

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might be Minecraft fanfiction in disguise kinda but I added some realism that just isn't in the game so forgive me all you Minecraft purists out there...
> 
> ...also I have brain rot.
> 
> Please leave me a comment to help me recover ;-;
> 
> ALSO also, I'm gonna try to call the player Wyatt when OUTSIDE the games, and Gordon INSIDE the games. Wish me luck.


	3. Minecraft PART 2/3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The journey through this strange, blocky world continues!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...m-minecraft fanfic...
> 
> Also I changed the player's name from Ryan to Wyatt since it fits better and is a cheeky reference to Wayne's """Brother""".

\- - -

**"Onwards and Upwards, Gordon!"**

\- - -

"So i'm going to take a wild guess here and say that this 'JohnWickLover1994' guy is that idiot Benry," Bubby said as they walked, causing Gordon to glance back at him with a grin.

"Yeah- I mean, it _has_ to be, we're all here and this is a single-player world. Plus that totally sounds like a username he'd have," he replied, getting an excited nod from Tommy. 

"Benry loves that- that movie- he said he wants to be an- an action hero like him!!" the man said happily, hands folded as they made their way through the forest.

"Its very good to have aspirations," Dr. Coomer added.

Gordon continued walking before opening his inventory and grabbing some dirt blocks. "Lemme just check if I can see the ocean from up here," he said, jumping and placing the blocks down simultaneously until he could see above the trees. 

"Excellent breaking of physics, Gordon! No wonder you have a PhD in Theoretical ones!" Coomer said from below as the player narrowed his eyes on the horizon. There was a beach that wasn't too far from where they were now, along with an ocean and what looked like a partial shipwreck. He grinned at the sight and started breaking the blocks beneath him, dropping back down onto the ground.

"Alright Science Team, Benry's that way- it looks like there's a beach over there, and since players usually don't spawn too far apart from one another, that has to be where Benry is," he explained, putting his first blocks away and taking the lead. 

"Remind me again just _why_ we want to find him?" Bubby asked, his arms crossed over his chest as he walked. Dr. Coomer patted his shoulder before the group ducked under a couple of tree limbs. 

"Ben-Benry's our friend, Bubby!! We have to make sure that he- he's safe!" Tommy replied, his words punctuated by multiple barks from the horde of wolves that had joined them on their route.

"That, and frankly I don't want any of your guys being on your own. I know what Benry did was..." he sighed, running a hand through his hair. "It was fucked up. But you did some pretty fucked up things too, Bubby," he said, causing the elderly man to grimace and avert his gaze as they walked. 

"You guys are special, and well, despite your...flaws, I'd like to think that we're all friends. And I'm not gonna let my friends spend who knows how long alone in the void of some game from the 90's when they could be hangin' with me," he finished, glancing over his shoulder with a smirk before looking back towards the beach they came across.

Bubby grumbled something out that he was sure walked the line between insulting and endearing, and Coomer squeezed his shoulder affectionately, causing him to blush again.

"Benry! You around?" Gordon called out, glancing around the beach as the Science Team dispersed. There was a distinct sound of stone breaking and Gordon glanced back to find Dr. Coomer punching some stone into oblivion- and being confused when he got nothing out of it and the block simply vanished.

"Dr. Coomer, try the pickaxe I gave you," he said with a warm shake of the head, turning his attention back towards the ocean to search fo-

"Sup."

The brunet yelped at the sudden appearance of the pale, ever-so-slightly-blue skinned man in front of him, his hands in his pants pockets as seawater dripped from his clothes. The guy was soaked but it seemed like he barely even registered that fact.

One hand on his chest and the other out towards Benry as the man chuckled, Gordon tried to re-orient himself and _not_ die of fright. _"Dude,"_ he breathed, huffing before running a hand through his hair. "You need a bell," he said, jabbing a finger into the security guard's chest with an amused grin as the man glanced down in confusion at his security vest. He brought a hand up to rub at the material before looking back at Gordon.

"What, that a kink of yours, Feetman? Wanna make Benry a- a catboy? A nyah catboy? Huh?" he asked with a shit-eating grin, causing the player to wheeze. He stumbled back a step, doubling over in laughter as Benry's smile widened. "Not cool, Feetman. Consent- uh, you gotta ask before you throw your kinks on- on people."

Gordon ended up stumbling backward and landing on his ass again, still laughing as he laid down in the sand with a wide smile. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed this freak. Despite everything he'd done, there was just something about Benry that made Gordon want to forgive him. Maybe it was some kind of older-brother instinct in him, something that told him Benry was just some rotten, annoying kid that, at the end of the day, he couldn't help but adore. 

Well, maybe adore wasn't the right word- but he liked the guy. He was _unique_ , for sure.

"So- so craft mines, huh?" Benry asked, glancing around the place. "You dropped us into Legoland and didn't put us in creative mode? Not- uh, uncool, dude. Benry tried to drink seawater and ate too much. Top 10 feetman gamer fail moments, bro."

Gordon glanced up from his spot in the sand, opening his mouth to say something, only to have Tommy call his name from afar and force him to sit up with a grunt. He glanced towards the lanky man to find him running along the beachfront with a sheep in his arms, the horde of wolves he'd tamed barking and chasing after him excitedly. 

"Help- help me Mr. Freeman! They- the dogs wanna eat this poor little sheep!" he yelled in a panic, yelping when one of the wolves leaped towards the sheep, only for Tommy to lift the animal above his head as he kept running.

Gordon couldn't help but snort at the sight, bringing a hand up to his mouth to muffle the sound as Benry cackled beside him. "Come on, let's go help him," he said, clambering to his feet and taking off towards Tommy. He didn't look behind him to check if Benry was following, but the guy was still cackling like a madman, so that was reassurance enough.

They managed to work their way closer to Tommy as they ran, tapping the dogs currently chasing him and causing them to sit, scattered across the beach and barking as the lanky scientist continued to run with the sheep held high above his head. Benry laughed as Gordon tripped over a dog he made sit down right in his path, the shorter of the two bounding over both Gordon and the dog he dove for the last dog on Tommy's heels. 

"And it's gooooooooood! The crowd goes wild and stuff, and Benry gets the most epic- epic gamer trophy ever, woooooo..." Benry said, his voice half-muffled by the sand that his face was currently planted in as he kept a tight grip on the wolf in front of him. "Epic gamer moments- Benry 1, Gordo 0."

The player shook his head at the man as he pulled himself up off the ground, dusting the sand from his clothes before looking around for Tommy. "Where'd he go?" he questioned, raising an eyebrow as he searched for the man. He caught sight of Coomer and Bubby currently in the middle of attempting to flatten a massive bounder on the beach using only a pair of wooden pickaxes, and he left them to that.

"Tommmmyyyyyy!" Benry called out, clambering up from the sand himself (and _not_ bothering to dust himself off). "Bro, where'd you go? This ain't Prop Hunt!"

Gordon heard the shuffle of leaves, causing. him to glance up and find Tommy sitting at the top of an oak tree, sheep still clutched tightly in his arms. "Mr. Freeman? I- I think I'm stuck..."

Benry started cackling again. The large boulder on the beach burst into flames. Gordon sighed.

\- - -

It took Gordon longer than he would have liked to gather the science team back up into one cohesive unit again, but he wasn't sure what he expected from throwing them into a sandbox world. At least here they couldn't cause too much damage to anyone else.

Currently, the group was wandering through the woods on the search for anything interesting; a village, a mansion, a ravine- anything. Gordon had obviously taken the lead, a stone sword in his hand given to him by Coomer (We may still have our guns, Gordon, but you are defenseless!"), and his eyes were peeled for anything of interest before them. 

"I'm _bored_ ," Bubby piped up, walking with his arms crossed over his chest. 

"Same, bro," Benry added, getting a scowl from the older man.

"I wasn't talking to _you_."

"Yo, Benry can't have opinions now? Can't- no feelings allowed? Bummer, man," Benry shot back with a grin, causing a flame to spark on the scientist's shoulder- something that was quickly patted out by a worried Tommy. 

"Hey, knock it off you two. I think I found something," Gordon said, glancing over his shoulder to look between the pair. He really didn't need any infighting- just because Bubby couldn't get over his pride and forgive Benry didn't give him the right to antagonize, well, the antagonist. 

"What is it, Gordon?" Dr. Coomer asked, coming closer as Gordon narrowed his eyes at the sight of a thin pillar of smoke rising above the trees. This wasn't like the uncontrolled fire of Bubby's pyrokinesis at work, this was a controlled fire- a _blacksmith's_ fire.

A smile spread across Gordon's face as he glanced over his shoulder before looking back towards the plume of smoke. "You'll see. But before we go any further- I think we need some ground rules."

Tommy tilted his head in confusion, the singular dog he'd ended up keeping after that whole beach fiasco copying his movement. Bubby rolled his eyes as Coomer clasped his hands, and Benry grinned.

"No guns. Those are only to be used on monsters, okay? Skeletons, zombies, giant spiders- that kind of thing. No shooting people, got it?" he said, looking around the group with a serious gaze. "I'm serious, guys- places like this are protected by giant golems made of iron. If you hurt somebody here You. Will. Be. Thrown."

"U-Understood, Mr. Freeman!"

"Couldn't be clearer, Gordon!"

"Yeah, fine."

Benry shot finger guns at him.

Gordon could practically feel the migraine slowly working its way through his mind, but despite this, and despite the fact that this could only end in disaster, he decided to go through with it. It wasn't like this was the only village in the game- Wyatt himself had messed up plenty of them in the past.

"Alright, come on," he said, heading towards the plume of smoke. He pulled back a branch and maneuvered under it, grinning at the sight of the rustic village laid out in this meadow biome. The place had a blacksmith's, a leatherworker, a cleric- they even had natural beehives dotted around the town. It was a nice place, considering everything was procedurally generated.

"Well- have at it, I guess. But please, seriously, no guns," he said, glancing back towards the group, only to find them already having gone off in their own separate directions. Gordon rubbed the back of his neck, tilting his head slightly before deciding to look around himself. He passed a villager in brown leather and nodded at the man, getting a "Hrm," in response that made him smile.

Barney had a habit of referring to these guys _only_ as Squidward, and choosing to hear their little noises as 'attitude'. He shook his head at the thought, trying to dismiss it from his mind, only for his brain to go further down that rabbit hole as he walked along the dirt path between buildings.

What would Barney think if he could meet these guys? Not the villagers- _his_ guys. The Science Team™️. He brought a hand up to scratch at his jaw in thought as he walked to the cobblestone well in the center of town and took a seat on the edge. 

Barney was a programming major- computers and codes and video games were his thing. He'd probably be way more excited than Wyatt could ever be if he could meet the team. Would he think they were AI? He'd been surprised at their constantly changing code when he'd looked at it. 

A part of him worried about what might come out of the exchange. Wyatt was sure he and Benry would get on like a house on fire- part of the reason he'd been able to deal with Benry's consistent prodding and teasing was because he was so similar to the player's roommate. Bubby would probably be wary of the man, if not outright loathe him for how similar he was to their resident security guard. 

Tommy would probably be open and friendly, blindingly trusting like he always was. Dr. Coomer- well, honestly, Wyatt wasn't sure how Dr. Coomer would react to his roommate. A part of him said that he'd greet him just as warmly and openly as he'd greeted Wyatt, that he'd welcome him to their dysfunctional little group with open arms...

But something else whispered in the back of his mind, something cold and dark that reminded him of what had happened just after he'd lost his arm in the game. The 'Hell Room' as he'd come to call it... the revelation that everything he knew hadn't been real had hit Coomer hard- harder than anyone else, it felt like. 

What was he doing? Freaking himself out with hypotheticals wasn't good for his health. The team wouldn't be meeting Barney any time soon, so he didn't have to worry about it for now. Gordon leaned back against the side of the well, glancing towards where he heard Coomer and Bubby chatting and grinning when he found them walking down the path, hands hovering close to one another, just enough to interlock their fingers.

Must have been a force of habit- they hadn't told him much about their life before the game started, especially not after learning everything for them was a game, but Gordon knew the two had been pining after one another for a long time now. There was no telling how many times they had to be subtle in their shows of affection when walking the halls of Black Mesa- even if those times were simply lines of code pre-written and inputted as false memories.

It was heart-warming to see them fall back on something so _human_. 

Gordon turned his glance away from them to look towards Tommy and his singular wolf, whose collar Tommy had long since dyed yellow with a dandelion he'd found. The dog must have been acting as a stand-in for Sunkist; he'd have to look into the code again, see if Sunkist was an AI as well.

Tommy gasped at the sight of the blacksmith standing in front of an anvil, making the motions of hammering away at an iron sword. The lanky man walked up behind him and watched happily, the NPC ignoring him in favor of continuing to hammer the sword in front of him. Gordon shook his head at the man, leaning back slightly against the well and drawing in a deep breath before letting it out.

This was nice- it was easy and quiet. Peaceful, almost.

"It's uh, it's real cool that you did this for them," a sudden voice coming from his left caused him to jump slightly. Gordon glanced towards it and found Benry sitting beside him, positioned like a normal person sits on objects- not upside down or clipping through it ever so slightly. "You- you uh, didn't have to do that, for- so it's cool. Top 10 good guy Gordon moments," Benry continued, glancing back towards the others.

"You're a part of the Science Team too, Benry," Gordon replied, nudging the man slightly before watching as Coomer attempted to pull Bubby away from arguing with one of the villagers. "I brought _all_ of you here, didn't I?"

The security guard dropped his gaze, letting outa sigh as, surprisingly, a new emotion made its way onto the guard's face. Guilt...and...regret. "Yeah..." he breathed, a bit of those familiar glowing blue orbs slipping from his mouth. The man blinked, furrowing his brow at them and swatting them away, causing the glowing bubbles to vanish.

"Why'd you do that, anyway? Huh? 'M the bad guy. The protag's not supposed to- you- you can't go all soft on the big bad surprise villain of the game, bro," Benry said, dropping his gaze to stare at the dirt below them once more. He was gripping the edge of the well now, one of his legs fidgeting rapidly as he stared at the ground.

Gordon sighed, his shoulders slumping slightly as he glanced up toward the sky. "I dunno," he said with a roll of his shoulders. You're all AI's. I brought the others here first- or, well, my roommate did, and then we noticed what had to be your code still in the game, so I thought 'Why not'?," he explained, leaning back on his arms as he spoke.

"You guys deserve to experience something new; you're more than your code, you know?" he said, glancing towards the guard. "That includes you. I don't think I've ever heard a game character reference the number of things you do- or," he chuckled. "Or go off on random, confusing tangents. Or talk like he's got a screensaver for a brain and every time the bouncer hits the corner of the screen he experiences a thought."

This got a laugh out of Benry- a real, genuine laugh. Not a cackle or a huff through the nose, but a light, airy laugh that made his shoulders bounce and his helmet wiggle just slightly. 

"Feetman's got game, huh?" he asked after a moment, shit-eating grin back on his face.

Gordon shook his head. "Not at all- I don't wanna get into this with you," he said, sliding off the edge of the well. Gordon paused for a moment, bringing his wrist up and shaking it to display the IRL time. "Oh Shit," he said, blinking at the time. "I- I gotta go. It's like, 2am right now," he said, glancing around the village.

"Hey, Science team- Gordon's gotta leave, but I'll be back tomorrow, okay?" he said, getting a confused grin from Tommy, a glance towards the sun that was high in the sky, before a shrug and an even wider grin.

"Okay, Sleep tight Mr. Freeman!"

"You're leaving?" Bubby asked as he and Coomer came closer, one eyebrow raised as he shoved his hands into his lab coat pockets. "Fine," he said, averting his eyes before looking back after a moment. "You'd better come back though, understand?" he said, jabbing a boney finger into Gordon's chest gently with a grin.

"Will do, Bubby," Gordon replied with a grin.

"Stay safe, Gordon! Have pleasant dreams!" Coomer added.

"Don't wet the bed, bro."

"Alright- I'll see you guys tomorrow. Gordon's gotta recharge," he said tiredly, reaching up to his face and pulling off his headset. He blinked, eyes adjusting to the dark room before the man let out a yawn and paused the game, setting his headset down on his desk and stretching.

"Fingers crossed I don't come back to that village being burned to the ground," Wyatt commented to himself, suppressing a yawn and flopping onto his bed. His pillows were big and soft, and he grinned, grabbing one to hold onto before drifting off to sleep.

\- --

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one got oddly philosophical for some reason- like, lots of inward thinking towards the end there. Weird. Blame the music I was listening to while writing, I guess.


	4. Minecraft PART 3/3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our time in this blocky world is beginning to come to a close... and something's up with Wyatt's roommate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, if you didn't catch it last chapter, I changed the player's name to Wyatt cause of multiple reasons but the main one being that it's a fun reference.
> 
> Also- extra long chapter cause i have no self-control. 
> 
> You're welcome.

\- - -

**"Fingers crossed I don't come back to that village being burned to the ground," Wyatt commented to himself, suppressing a yawn and flopping onto his bed. His pillows were big and soft, and he grinned, grabbing one to hold onto before drifting off to sleep.**

\- - -

Wyatt woke with a start, jolting upward in bed as he was unceremoniously ripped from a dream that had something to do with a pool, Superman, and a fuck-ton of mustard.

He glanced around his room as he rubbed his eye with the base of his palm, stifling a yawn before plopping back down amongst his sea of pillows. He _really_ hadn't wanted to wake up, but here he was, in the realm of the living, instead of hanging out with Superman. 

Wyatt turned over on his bed and groaned into his pillows, lamenting the sleep he could still be getting as he hauled himself up and off his bed. His feet planted into the carpet beneath him, he glanced towards the computer before waving it off tiredly. The science team could last a _little_ longer- their fearless leader _really_ needed to eat. 

The young man pulled off the shirt he'd slept in last night, tossing it in the vaguest direction of the hamper and rolling his eyes when he missed. He could almost hear Benry jeering him from afar about how 'white boy had no game' or something.

Wyatt grinned and shook his head, digging around in his dresser before pulling out a clean, tangerine-colored shirt and pulling it on. Ironically enough it was one of the only video game shirts he owned- a bright orange shirt with the black mesa symbol plastered on the front. He ignored this fact and walked out of the bedroom, his sock-covered feet thudding against the carpeted stairs. 

Barney was already sitting at the bar, yawning as he cradled the bowl (that Wyatt was _pretty_ sure they'd been previously using to put fruit in) of cereal in front of him. He glanced towards Wyatt when he heard him approach, giving the man a tired wave. "Mornin'..." he said with another yawn.

"What's got you so tired, man?" Wyatt asked as he opened the fridge and pulled out the eggs. "Were you up playing competitive or something?" he asked as he broke three of the eggs into the bowl, grabbed a fork, and started mixing them together.

"Nah, Overwatch's competitive season doesn't start for another week," he yawned. "Slept like, an hour or two max last night," Barney replied before shoving a spoon full of cereal into his mouth and chewing slowly.

"What? _Why_ , dude? Don't you have work today?" 

"Yeah."

"So, I ask again, _why_ didn't you go to bed?" Wyatt asked incredulously, adding some milk to his eggs as he grabbed a skillet and turned on one of the burners. He glanced back at the larger man with a furrowed brow, watching him stare into his cereal like it held the key to life's greatest mysteries.

"Couldn't get those weird modded NPC's of yours outta my head, bro."

Wyatt tensed, turning back around to face the stove as he swallowed thickly. _Shit_. "Uh, why? They worked- uh, they worked just fine in Minecraft, so you don't gotta worry about that," he said, pouring his eggs into the skillet and taking a sliver of comfort in the satisfying hiss they made on contact with the hot metal. 

"That's the thing... there should be like, at least some level of jank, bro. I was expecting you to come bargin' into my room talkin' about how the NPC's don't talk or they glitch out or- or _something_ ," Barney replied, glancing up from his bowl to look at the back of Wyatt's head. "NPC's don't just slot easily into another game like that, dude. Not even weirdly modded ones like yours, and _especially_ not when you jump genres like you did."

Wyatt continued to stir his eggs around the hot pan, anxiety crawling up his spine as Barney continued to talk. This was bad- very _very_ bad. Barney knew something was up- and the man was like a cat, once he got curious about something there was no way to get him off of it before he either took the thing apart or accidentally broke it.

He really didn't want the Science Team to get broken _or_ taken apart...but they were AI's. And AI's of their level _weren't supposed to be possible yet._

"Eventually I stopped waitin' and tried to go to bed, but I couldn't sleep cause once the gears started turnin' they wouldn't stop, ya know? Maybe its a glitch, maybe its a virus, who fuckin' knows, man. I ended up passing out an hour or two before my alarm went off."

Oh God, oh God, he'd spent _all night_ thinking about the AI's!? This was bad. This was _very very bad_ -

"Bro, your eggs are gonna burn."

Wyatt flinched, turning his attention back towards his eggs and picking the skillet up off the light blue flame. He poured the eggs onto a waiting plate before setting the pan in the sink and leaning over the counter slightly. What would Barney do if he figured out they were AI? Would he try and tear them apart, despite the fact that they're alive and _real?_

He swallowed thickly at the thought. No- no. He wouldn't let that happen, even if Barney _did_ figure it out.

He wasn't going to let someone do that to his friends.

"Hey...you mind if I check those NPC's out after I get back from work? I don't think I'll be able to get it outta my head if I don't get a chance to look at them again," Barney said with a nervous chuckle as Wyatt grabbed his plate of eggs with a newfound determination.

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "...I...I guess." he said slowly. What was he doing?! "But you're only allowed to _look_ , okay? And- and I need you to look for something else in the Half-Life files while you're at it," he said, figuring he might as well try to get Sunkist (as well as Darnold and G-Man, if they were also AI's, now that he thought about it) out while he could.

"Wait, really?" Barney suddenly perked up, his excitement shining through despite the bags under his eyes. "You are the BEST bro- fuckin' _awesome_ ," he said with a wide grin before shoveling more of his now unbelievably soggy cereal in his mouth. 

"Sure, but I mean it, Ben- uh, _Barney_ , no touching. No- uh, no messing with the code, no tearing things apart. They're- these NPC's are delicate," Wyatt said, meeting the larger man's hazel eyes. Barney paused, nodding slowly.

"Oh, uh, yeah. Of course dude. Cross my heart 'n stuff. No messin' with the code," he said with a grin, holding up a hand as he traced an X over his chest. 

"Your heart is on the other side, dumbass."

"The sentiment's still there."

Wyatt snorted as he grabbed the salt. "Mhm- go. You're gonna be late for work. It's nearly 11."

"SHIT-"

\- - -

Wyatt sighed as he ran a hand through his tangled mess of hair, fingers getting caught in the curls before he managed to yank them out. He grabbed a rubber band from his desk and pulled his hair back in an attempt to tame the mane before grabbing the headset and pulling Minecraft back up.

He _really_ didn't want to think about Barney right now- the man would be at work until around 7 pm or so, so that gave Wyatt hopefully enough time to plan _something_.

When he'd exited the world the team were in, Wyatt hadn't actually closed the window- he wasn't sure if by closing the window it would send them all into some endless void, but he really hoped nothing like that had happened. He'd been pretty confident, even in his tired state last night, that the AI's would be fine as long as he didn't delete the world they were in, but that could have just been exhaustion speaking.

"Whatever..." Wyatt muttered to himself, shaking the thoughts from his mind as he pulled on the headset and crossed his fingers that he wouldn't come back to ruins.

Once he got past the loading screen, Wyatt found himself standing exactly where he'd logged off from- standing in front of the well. The main difference, though, was that the well was now in the center of a much larger and much more chaotic village- if it could even be called that anymore.

Railways surrounded him in an interlocking, makeshift highway system, with empty minecarts moving along them quickly. The villagers' houses had been redone, made to look more modern with wool and concrete and smooth stone. Colored glass glinting in the sun caught his attention and caused the man to turn to his right, where he found a massive statue of-

Of course it was Bubby.

Wyatt blinked at the statue before turning around in awe. Down one street there were nice-looking houses, each in a different color and style, but with a bright yellow garden of flowers in front of all of them. There was what Wyatt could only assume to be a playground, what with the limited resources there were in the game, along with an entire marketplace where all of the villagers seemed to have been trapped, one inside each "stall", blocked in by a stone wall behind them.

There was what Wyatt could only assume to be some kind of shopping street, since he caught sight of both a Mcdonalds and a Gamestop (and it didn't take a genius to figure out whose idea _those_ were) along with plenty of other vague shops.

The little town had grown exorbitantly and was filled with all kinds of resources, something that confused the everloving hell out of the player.

He'd only been gone one night, and these guys were on _survival_ mode. Where had they found the resources _(or time)_ to do all this?!

The man was unceremoniously ripped out of his thoughts when he was picked up and pulled into a bone-crushing hug accompanied by a cheerful "Hello, Gordon!"

"Dr. Coomer!? What- what happened here?" he wheezed as the man squeezed him tightly before setting him back down on the ground. "Where- how?" he asked, running a hand through his hair in confusion as he used the other to gesture to everything around him. "What is all this!?"

"Oh, Do you like it? We call it White Forest- since its the opposite of Black Mesa!" Coomer said cheerfully, and Gordon decided not to tell the man that their name was kind of already taken.

"Uh, who came up with that?"

"Benry did!"

"...Of course he did."

"Harold, will you _please_ slow down!? I can't keep up if you keep-" the sound of Bubby's voice caused both men to glance behind them, spotting the blue sweater-clad scientist trudging up from one of the roads with a scowl on his face. It deepened at the sight of Gordon, only to become a sneer.

"Decided to finally come back to us, then?" he asked with a rais of the eyebrow, confusing the brunet. "So much for 'tomorrow'."

'Wha-?"

Dr. Coomer lit up. "Oh yes! I'd nearly forgotten how long you abandoned us for in my excitement to see you again, Gordon." the elder man said as he took a step back and away from Gordon to stand beside Bubby. "Do you have a reason for vanishing for so long?"

"So long- guys, I was gone for a single night," Gordon replied, running a hand through his hair in confusion. "I- I have no idea what you're talking about. Why do you guys think I was gone for longer and how did you manage to build this in a single night!?"

Bubby narrowed his eyes, pushing his thick glasses up the bridge of his nose. "You've been gone for nearly _three weeks_ , Gordon. Do you have brain damage or something?" he asked, tilting his head in question. 

The youngest of the three paused, brow furrowing in thought. That wasn't _possible_. This- this had to be some kind of trick, right? "Is this a joke or some...thing...?" he asked, the words dying on his tongue when he caught sight of Benry, clad in full golden armor, walking down the street alongside Tommy.

Something in his head clicked.

"The day-night cycle..." he breathed, eyes widening as he smacked his palms into his face in frustration. "How could I forget about the damn day-night cycle?!" he said, running his hands up his face to curl his fingers tightly in his hair. _"Fuck,"_ he growled, leaning back against the stone well. 

"Oh, look whose finally back?" Benry said with what Gordon was sure was a shit-eating grin, causing the man to look towards him tiredly. "You uh- you forget about us or somethin'?" he asked, pulling the golden helmet off of his normal helmet and tossing it to the player. "We not uh- we not cool anymore? Look at Tommy- Tommy's cool," he continued, gesturing towards the much taller man who was watching Gordon worriedly.

"Are you okay, Mr. Freeman?"

"I'm... I'm fine, Tommy. Just dumb."

"You can say that again," Bubby said with a smirk, gaining him an unimpressed look from Gordon.

"Look- I forgot that this game has a day-night cycle that's way faster than my time. It's uh- I think its 72 times faster, actually..." he said, holding onto the golden helmet with one hand and rubbing the back of his neck nervously with the other. "A day here is like, 20 minutes my time...I completely forgot about that..." he said, glancing around the group.

"I'm sorry guys," he tried, turning the helmet over in his hands. "I really didn't mean to like, abandon you guys or anything," he said, only for Dr. Coomer to pick him up in a spine-crushing hug again.

"Oh, it's quite alright, Gordon! No harm done! We've managed to spend our time here fairly well, I'd say!" he said happily, causing the player to grin and wheeze. Bubby sighed and crossed his arms over his chest behind the pair. 

"Fine- you're forgiven. Wouldn't be perfect if I didn't know how to forgive someone who admitted when they were wrong," he grumbled, reaching a hand out to pat Gordon's head uneasily as Dr. Coomer put him down on the ground.

"Dr. Coomer's right, Mr. Freeman! Did you- did you see all the things we built?" Tommy asked with a grin, clasping his hands together in front of his chest as he stared at Gordon. "We built a McDonalds!"

"Do you want a fuckin' beeeeeezechurger?" Benry said with a grin. Gordon rolled his eyes at the man before looking back towards Tommy with a tired grin.

"Yeah- Yeah, I did. This place is insane. I'll have to take a tour sometime," he said with a smile, causing Tommy to grin wider. Gordon paused, suddenly remembering the importance of this evening again. They really did a good job at distracting him, huh? "Guys," he said, tossing the golden helmet to Tommy, who put it on right over top of his helicopter hat with a smile.

"So uh, my roommate- the one that moved you guys in here in the first place," he started, bringing a hand up to scratch at his jaw. "He wanted to take a look at your code again," he said, glancing around and finding a sliver of worry slip onto Benry's face before being replaced by his usual monotone look. "I told him that he wasn't allowed to mess with it, but apparently he lost sleep over it last night."

The AI's glanced towards one another before looking back at Gordon. "What...does that mean for us, Gordon?" Bubby asked with a raised eyebrow. 

"He uh- he's just gonna look, so nothing. I told him he isn't allowed to touch it," Gordon said, meeting Bubby's gaze head-on. "Trust me, it makes me anxious too," he said, only to get a somewhat insulted look from the lanky man before he glanced towards the others. "But I swear, I'm not gonna let anything happen to you guys."

"You sure, bro?" Benry asked after a moment, hands shoved into his pockets.

Gordon nodded. "Yeah- and in return for letting him look at you guys again, I asked him to look through Ha-" he cut himself off. "Uh, your old game's files to see if there was anything else there. Maybe he could find Darnold or Mr. Coolatta or Sunkist, right?" he said hopefully, glancing towards Tommy.

The man's smile was spread from ear to ear at this point, his hands unclasped and waving excitedly at his waist, as if he'd just been told he was going to an amusement park or something. "That sounds Am-amazing, Mr. Freeman! Darnold is an AI for sure, and I think my dad might be one too, but he also might be some kind of glitch in the system," Tommy explained, his stimming dying down to one hand simply shaking as he spoke.

"But Sunkist is attached to my code since I made her! I just- just don't have a way to make her- her model appear! I need some kind of image I can attach her to."

"Wait," Gordon stretched a hand out towards the lanky man. "Does that mean that Sunkist isn't actually a golden retriever?" he asked slowly.

Tommy blinked. "No, she is! She's just code right now!"

Right. Gordon should have known how that was gonna go down before he even asked the question. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Okay...well uh, we can't keep you guys in here, this day-night cycle is gonna be an issue and honestly... it looks like you guys pretty much got the hang of Minecraft," he said, watching as Benry wandered off and set a villager on fire after the man refused to let him buy "some sweet sweet v bucks".

"Yeah, definitely not _that_ game..." Gordon muttered to himself before clapping his hands together and glancing back towards the group- which once again included their friendly(?) neighborhood eldrich being. 

"Did uh, did you guys have any games in mind that you really wanted to check out?" he asked, not really holding out for much since the AI's would probably all say things akin to 'Super Punch-Out'. 

"Super P-"

"Dr. Coomer, that's not gonna work. That game isn't one I can get on my computer," Gordon said, interrupting the man and making him frown.

"Dream killer," Bubby commented as Dr. Coomer sulkily set his head against the taller man's arm.

Benry grinned a sharp, toothy smile that told Gordon immediately what the man was going to say. "If you say 'Heavenly Sword' I _will_ take everyone else out of this game and leave you in Minecraft to rot, Benry," he said, pointing a finger at the man. The toothy smile was replaced with a pout as Benry rested his head sulkily against Coomer, copying the man's position against Bubby.

Gordon sighed.

"Could- could I make a suggestion, Mr. Freeman?" Tommy asked, causing the player to glance towards him. Good ol' Tommy. He nodded, gesturing towards him to tell him that he had the floor to speak. "W-what about- um- Slime Rancher? Benry told me about it and I- I uh, I don't know if it's real-" Benry gave him a betrayed look, which Tommy ignored. "But from what he told me, it sounds fun...the adorable slimes and the low gravity and such..."

The player grinned, patting the taller man's shoulder. "Honestly Tommy- that sounds perfect," he said, rubbing at his jaw in thought as he started muttering to himself. "Slime Rancher's single-player too, but with some finagling Barney should be able to-" he paused when Benry let out a harsh bark of laughter.

"Bro what? I can't do shit from in here," he said with a raised eyebrow- or at least, Gordon assumed it was raised. It vanished into his helmet so who _really_ knew. "No-Clip doesn't really uh, translate to like, whole viddy games 'n stuff."

Gordon blinked. "I- I wasn't talking about you. I wasn't talking _to_ you! I was talking about my roommate, Benry! Not you!" he huffed, pinching the bridge of his nose and getting a "wha huh?" in response as Benry tilted his head in confusion.

"My roommate is a programmer. Or, he will be, at least, when he graduates this semester. He's the one I was talking about that moved you guys in here in the first place?" he said expectantly, only to get an owlish blink from the pale man.

_"Nevermind,"_ Gordon deadpanned, shaking his head at the shorter man. "Look, we got some time to kill. Why don't you guys show me around White Forest?" he asked, glancing around. Tommy grinned widely as Dr. Coomer seemed to be back to his chipper self, popping up happily. He was already launching into what had to be a Wikipedia article about forests as he held tightly onto Bubby's hand and started leading the chaotic group down a street.

Gordon didn't notice Benry hang back for a moment, glowing spheres of jade slipping from his mouth as he stared at the player.

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I get that this fandom is slowly becoming like the Undertale one, but I'm gonna attempt to ignore that fact and keep posting my stuff :)
> 
> Anywho- gimme a comment and tell me whatcha think, anything you wanna say about this fic so far- they're the only things I care about.
> 
> ALSO-- wait am I dumb or is Elle's Row a real place!?!? It sounds so familiar (video-game wise) but I cannot find ANYTHING about it. Am I just dumb?????


	5. Barney Takes a Closer Look

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team shows Gordon around the town they've created, and Barney finally takes another look at that weird code...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I am pulling all computing knowledge out of my ass. I'm not a programmer by any means.

\- - -

**Gordon didn't notice Benry hang back for a moment, glowing spheres of jade slipping from his mouth as he stared at the player.**

\- - -

The group ended up showing him most of the town they'd made- and while Benry claimed it was all done in survival mode and that it was 'a total epic gamer move' to do so, Wyatt didn't really believe him. The others, sure- he'd take _them_ at their word. But Benry? There was no way in hell. _Especially_ not with that grin he had on anytime he talked about it.

Speaking of Benry- the guy had popped up out of nowhere beside him (which, that in itself wasn't what threw him for a loop- not by this point anyway) as the others had been excitedly showing him around their home-grown shopping district, but was oddly quiet. 

Well, okay, him being quiet wasn't what was weird either- and he was still piping up to throwing a one-liner or to make fun of Gordon whenever the chance arose, but the air around him just felt...off. He kept staring at Gordon when he didn't think he was looking with a weird, far away look in his eye that unnerved the player.

That is until he would catch him doing it and immediately cough or slug him in the shoulder and make a comment about how the brunet was marveling at his perfect game model or something. Gordon would roll his eyes and keep walking, but after a few moments would feel the man's piercing eyes on him once more. 

It was weird...even for Benry.

The sudden shrill ringing of Wyatt's timer going off caused the man to flinch, nearly spooking him out of his shorts and interrupting Tommy as he tried to explain why he'd felt it necessary to build a pet groomer's for their town. 

"What's that, Mr. Freeman?" the lanky man asked, cocking his head to one side as both Dr. Coomer and Bubby looked around. 

"It's uh- it's my timer," Gordon said, swallowing thickly and bringing a hand up to his temple, tapping twice, and glancing around the bedroom that showed up through his headset. A neat little addition to his device that had helped him readjust plenty of times in the past. He took a couple of steps forward, towards his desk, unaware of the confused, amazed looks he was getting from the AI's.

"What the..." Bubby breathed as Gordon reached out and slid a finger over the phone on the desk, silencing it. It'd been set for 10 minutes before Barney was supposed to be home- which meant they didn't have a lot of time.

"Gordon, is- is this the real world?" Dr. Coomer asked, causing the player to glance towards the sound of his voice. He found the man, along with Bubby, Tommy and Benry, standing just outside the play area that displayed Wyatt's bedroom. They were staring at the things that surrounded him, despite them being in a slightly grainy black and white, with complete awe. 

"Oh uh- I didn't realize you guys would be able to see this," Gordon said after a moment, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah, yeah this is my bedroom, I guess," he said, slightly self-conscious of the pile of clothes sitting next to the hamper and the overflowing garbage can next to his desk. "I just- uh, I just needed to turn this on so I could turn off my timer," he said, tapping his temple twice and shutting off the projection. 

He missed the wide-eyed look Benry was giving him, as he'd shut the thing down just before the AI could make contact with the blurry black and white ground around him. 

"Everything looked so- so lived in," Tommy said, getting a snort from Bubby as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"That's one way to say it. Looked like a pig-sty to me," he said, only to get an elbow to the ribs from Coomer. "What? Did you not see the Mount Fuji of clothing in the corner?" he asked, glancing towards the shorter scientist.

"I must say...if that's what your reality looks like, Gordon, I'm right jealous," Coomer said after a moment. 

"Well, I mean, that image was really grainy and in black and white cause it's only really supposed to be used to re-orient yourself in you go out of the play...area..." he tried off at the sight of Tommy averting his gaze and rubbing at his arm weakly. Bubber pushed his glasses up his nose with a huff and a roll of his eyes, and Coomer sighed.

"But it's still _real_ , Gordon."

"I...I guess."

"What was that timer for anyway, Feetman?" Benry asked after a moment, being the one to keep them on track for once (and didn't _that_ feel odd).

"Oh uh- that was for Barney," he said, glancing around the slightly down group. "He gets home in 10 minutes- or, he's supposed to at least. He's gonna want to look at you guys' code right away, so I thought I'd set a timer so we had enough time to talk and stuff before everything went down."

"What are we supposed to talk about? You already told us that he's just going to look," Bubby replied.

"Yeah, well uh, I think I'm gonna try and get him to move you guys to Slime Rancher, too, so we don't have another day-night cycle mishap," Gordon said, eyes landing on Tommy. "In addition to trying to get Darnold and the others out, too, if he can."

"You sure your dumb roommate can do all- all that?" Benrey asked, shoving his hands into his pockets as he leaned against a lamp post. "Big- uh, big man can handle all this code? All this jacked-up Benny code?" he asked, taking one hand out to gesturing to himself before shoving it back into his pocket. 

"Considering he's planning on moving to New York for some job after he graduates, yeah. Pretty sure he can handle some old code, even if it does belong to a complex AI like you, Benry," Gordon said with a smirk and a shake of his head, turning his attention towards Tommy and missing the subtle tinge of color that spread across his cheeks for a moment.

"Well- well I trust you, Mr. Freeman. You haven't- haven't steered us wrong before!"

"Quite right, Tommy! I have full confidence that you won't let anything happen to us or our delicate, intricate code, right Gordon?" Coomer asked with a grin, causing the poor man so much more anxiety than he'd had previously.

"Y-yeah, of course, Dr. Coomer."

"Excellent!"

There was the distinct sound of the front door shutting, something Wyatt was fairly certain only he could hear. "Shit- sounds like he's home. I'm gonna shut down the game- I have no idea what happens to you guys when I do this, but if you go to sleep just know that when you wake up, you won't be here," he said quickly, glancing around the group.

"Okay..." he drew in a breath before letting it out. "See you in a bit guys," he said with a grin.

"Goodbye, Gord-"

\- - -

Wyatt felt a twinge of guilt as he pulled off the headset and cut Dr. Coomer's words short, but he could hear Barney coming up the stairs and _really_ didn't need to be in the game, talking to the 'NPC's' like they were real people and having them talk back when Barney could possibly hear him.

"Sorry, Coomer," he muttered before setting the headset on the desk and grabbing his phone, sliding it into his pocket, and closing Minecraft. He really _really_ hoped that wouldn't do anything harmful to the AI's, and part of him knew it wouldn't, that they'd be _fine_ , but anxiety was a clingy bitch. 

The man took a moment to compose himself as he heard the flush of the toilet followed by the running water of the sink, leaning over his desk slightly and fidgeting with the mouse. He pulled up the directory to allow Barney to search for the files he wanted to see, but there really wasn't much else to do.

A knock on his door caused Wyatt to glance towards it. "Pizza Man," Barney said through the wood, opening the door with a grin and peering inside. "You decent?" he asked, leaning into the room with a pizza box in one hand. Wyatt grinned at the man, shaking his head as he pushed the door open and came into the room fully.

"That a full pizza or one you fucked up?" he asked with a chuckle, pulling his desk chair back towards his computer and plopping down in it easily. Barney gave him a look of mock betrayal, lifting the greasy, cardboard box just out of Wyatt's reach.

"How dare you sir- to insinuate that I would bring anything other than pure perfection home is an insult to my ancestors!"

"Barney, shut up," Wyatt replied with a chuckle, to which the man shrugged and tossed him the box. "Oh shit, pepperoni and mushroom? What'd I do to deserve this?" he asked as he glanced up from the pizza to look at his roommate.

Barney rolled a shoulder, glancing towards the brunet's computer. "Thought I'd give you a little thank you for lettin' me look at that crazy code again," he said, leaning over the desk slightly and typing something into the directory. Wyatt watched closely, taking a piece of pizza out of the box and biting into it. 

" 'Member Barnes-" Wyatt said through a full mouth, only to be waved off by the raven.

"Yeah yeah yeah, bro, I know. No messin' with 'em," he said, brows furrowed in concentration as he started typing furiously into the keyboard. Wyatt clambered up from his seat and rolled the desk chair towards him, the larger man taking a seat wordlessly as he pulled up the changing lines of code that had to be one of the AI's.

"Bro..." he breathed, bringing a hand up to his face to rub at his jaw as he simply watched the lines of code shift and change. "This is insane," he breathed.

Wyatt took another bite of his pizza and glanced over his roommate's shoulder to look at the screen. None of it made sense to him- a confusing string of numbers and letters that just made him confused as he watched them change. "Can you look through HL's files again for me real quick?" he asked as he finished one slice of pizza and wiped his fingers on his shirt. He tossed the cardboard box onto his bed and watched as Barney minimized the window.

"Sure- what am I lookin' for, though?" he asked, glancing up at the brunet.

"Uh- another NPC or two. Maybe three," Wyatt replied, getting a raised eyebrow from the larger man. "They're not as modded as the other four, but uh, one should be a scientist, one should be a soldier, and the last one..." he trailed off as Barney started typing things into the directory. "Uh- see if you can find G-Man."

This caused Barney to pause, his fingers hovering over the keyboard before he turned his attention fully towards the brunet standing over his shoulder. He blinked slowly, oddly reminiscent of Benrey, Wyatt thought, before raising his eyebrows. "Why the hell do you want me to find G-Man? He's not an NPC- he's- you can't have him follow you around. G-Man's model only works through cut scenes and little appearances."

"Can't you just look?" Wyatt asked. _And stop asking so many questions!?_

Barney sighed, turning back towards the screen. " _Fine_ ," he muttered as he typed. After a few moments of quiet typing and clicking, Barney brought up some code. It still had shifting letters and numbers, but only some of the lines changed, and they didn't change at the same rate as the others' had.

"This is the only scientist I could find that is kind like your weird modded ones. DRDP_NPC- it's got _some_ shifting code- what's the mod for this one?" he asked, glancing back towards Wyatt.

The man swallowed thickly. "Uh- just dialog mods. Makes 'em more robust 'n stuff," he said, glancing back towards the screen. That _had_ to be Darnold. "Can you move it to a folder on my desktop?" he asked, to which Barney nodded.

"There's no soldier in here with changing code, by the way," he said as he worked to move Darnold's code into a folder on the computer's desktop. "I mean there are regular ones, but I'm gonna assume you just want the modded ones for whatever reason," Barney continued.

So it must have been Benry messing with them in another model. He'd had the thought that it might be him due to the voice, but at the moment everything had been too hectic. Well- it was one less AI to juggle if Forzen wasn't actually _real_.

Barney sighed, closing the folder that now had all of Darnold's code inside it. "The hell did you do to G-Man to mod him? I didn't think mods for him even _existed_ ," he said, opening the files for Half-Life up again.

"Uh- well it was one that made him a playable character," Wyatt tried. "Super buggy and uh- probably gave me malware or something, but it was funny to see G-Man going ham on headcrabs with a crowbar!" he said, hoping, begging barney to buy that. It didn't really look like he did, given the face he made, but he didn't say anything else, so Wyatt considered it a win.

"Holy _shit_. Would ya look at that..." Barney said, gesturing towards the screen at the changing lines of code that must have belonged to Mr. Coolatta as he leaned back in the desk chair. "This is so fuckin' weird, bro," he breathed wit ha shake of his head. Wyatt grabbed the pizza box off the bed and offered it to him, only to get a disgusted face from the man.

"Gross- get your nasty mushroom-riddled pie away from me," he said with a chuckle, getting a laugh and an eye roll from the brunet. "Okay, look-" he said, sitting up slightly in the chair and turning it to fully face Wyatt, his expression turning solemn. "What's goin' on here? These mods you got- they shouldn't be doing things like this," he said, jabbing a thumb towards the changing lines of code over his shoulder. 

Wyatt glanced towards the screen, looking at G-Man's code shift before blinking at the webcam suddenly turning on, the little green indicator light glowing brightly as the circular camera shifted towards him. He tried not to react, choosing instead to swallow thickly.

"Well uh, I mean, I- I found 'em on Reddit, ya know? Never- heh, never know what kind of insane shit y-you're gonna find there," he tried with a nervous chuckle.

Barney gave him an unimpressed look. "Dude."

"What?? Look, I'm- I'm not a programmer, dude! I don't know why these codes keep changing and shifting! I'm not doing it!" he said, trying very _very_ hard not to look at the camera currently watching him. He wasn't sure if it was G-Man or the Science Team (or Hell, even _Darnold_ ) but he knew that if Barney saw it, he'd flip out. "I mean if I could get it to _stop_ I would!" he said pointedly, letting out a sigh of relief when the bright green indicator light turned off.

Barney glanced back towards the computer with a sigh. "Fuck, man... I mean- I guess you're right, but..." he trailed off, shaking his head. "I dunno, it just feels like there's something big I'm missing, bro," he said, chewing on his cheek as he watched G-Man's code. "...You want this one in a folder too?" he asked, glancing towards the brunet and getting a shaky nod in response.

"Can, uh, can you do me another favor, actually?" Wyatt asked, ringing his wrist as Barney moved the enigmatic man's code into the same folder he'd put Darnold into. Barney said nothing, continuing to move code quietly, but Wyatt knew he was giving him the go-ahead.

"Can you move the NPC's from Minecraft to Slime Rancher maybe?" he asked, biting down on his lip when Barney paused, closing the folder that now held both Darnold and G-Man, and looking at him in confusion again.

"Dude, I _just_ moved them into Minecraft. What's with the sudden change?" he asked slowly.

Wyatt rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "Well, I uh- I just thought that Slime Rancher might be a better fit for these guys, what with the uh, the plort guns and less open map and such?" he tried, getting a tired look from his roommate. "Please?" he asked, clasping his hands together in a begging manner.

Barney shook his head slowly. "You're lucky I like you," he said, pulling up the files for Minecraft and moving the Ai's into the same folder he'd put Darnold and G-Man into. He then opened the files for Slime Rancher (that Wyatt was thankful he still had on his computer and didn't have to download again) and started the process of moving the AI's there. 

After a few minutes of quiet typing from Barney and not-so-quiet eating from Wyatt, the larger man leaned back in the chair and cracked his knuckles before folding his arms over his chest. "I'm the _best_ ," he said with a grin, glancing towards Wyatt. "She's all done. Eat your heart out," he said, standing up and popping his back tiredly.

"Uh- thanks...for lettin' me look, by the way," he said after a moment, watching as Wyatt tossed aside the pizza and got up from the bed.

"I mean, yeah, dude. Did it...answer any of your questions?" Wyatt asked, moving his desk chair out of the way so he could play properly.

Barney just shrugged. "I dunno...I think I might have just come away from that with _more_ ," he said, bringing a hand up to rub the back of his neck. "Uh- I'm gonna go...take a nap," he said, leaving the bedroom and shutting it beside him tiredly.

Guilt was suddenly biting at his core as Wyatt held the headset in his hands, staring at the door. Barney was a curious guy, but he knew when to respect boundaries. He wouldn't push it if Wyatt didn't let him, but he knew how much it would eat away at the man.

He'd known the raven for years by this point, he could honestly call him the closest friend he had. Was he really going to keep something like _this_ from him? Wyatt sighed, turning the headset over in his hands as he mulled over his thoughts, unaware of the bright green light coming from the camera as it stared unblinkingly at him.

He ran a hand through his hair, grabbing onto the curly strands near his forehead with a groan. "Why is this such a headache?" he muttered, squeezing his eyes shut before letting out a sigh. Wyatt opened his eyes and swallowed thickly, trying to push the thoughts from his mind. He could deal with this later- for now, he had a team to go see.

"Okay," he breathed, glancing back down at the headset before pulling it on. "Game on."

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact about me: I hate pizza. :)
> 
> Also: please please PLEASE tell me what you guys think of this so far. Do you like it? Anything you wanna see more of? Anything you wanna see less of? please tell me its the only motivation I have ;-;


	6. Slime Rancher PART 1/4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Into Slime Rancher we go!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my discord friends. You found it. :)

\- - -

**"Okay," he breathed, glancing back down at the headset before pulling it on. "Game on."**

\- - -

Wyatt booted up the game and chewed on the inside of his cheek in thought as it loaded, his thoughts wandering back to Barney. Why was this guilt making its way up his spine? He was doing what he was doing to protect his friends, that- that wasn't anything wrong, it wasn't anything he should feel guilty about!

And yet...

He couldn't help but think about the confusion in his roommate's eyes. The need to know, to understand, and the frustration of being so _close_ , only to be shut down. Barney was his friend too, wasn't he? Why...why was he choosing one group over the other? Maybe- Maybe he could trust the man with a secret like this.

Maybe he could-

"Feetman, you there, bro?" Benry's voice pulled him from his confused thoughts. He blinked, glancing around to find that he was standing in the spawn area for the game. "Earth to Gordo," Benry said, waving a hand in front of his face before taking a step back when Gordon smacked it away.

"What are you _doing_ , Benry?" Gordon asked with a furrowed brow, bringing a hand up to run it through his hair as he glanced around. 

"Snappin' you out of your 1000-yeard stare," Benry replied with a smirk before jabbing his thumb over his shoulder. "The others are over there. The soda guy and Mr. Coolatta randomly showed up, so..." he trailed off, glancing in the direction of the rest of the group. Gordon followed his gaze, looking over to find Tommy hugging his father tightly while Coomer patted Darnold happily on the shoulder.

Bubby had his arms crossed, but there was a snarky grin on his face, so Gordon was fairly certain he was content. "I uh, thought I'd grab you from your flashback moment since you decided to go all stony on us as soon as you loaded," Benry said, glancing back towards the brunet. He shoved his hands into his pockets and kicked at a rock by his foot absently before looking around.

"So...slime cowboys?" he asked after a moment.

Was this Benry's attempt at small talk?

"Look, small talk later- right now I think we should go meet up with the others," Gordon said, maneuvering around the shorter man and walking towards the group. Darnold greeted him with a slightly confused grin, Coomer's hand still on his shoulder.

"Dr. Freeman! Lovely to see you again- your- your arm looks to be doing much better," he said, gesturing towards the player's right arm. Gordon lifted it with a tired grin, nodding in agreement.

"Ah- uh, yeah, yeah. Much better," he said before being swept up and lifted off his feet in a hug. It wasn't as tight as one of Dr. Coomer's, but once glance towards a very grateful Tommy holding him tight had the player chuckling. 

"You're gonna break my back, Tommy," he said, only for the lanky man to set him down on the ground. 

"S-sorry, Mr. Freeman!! I'm just really grateful that you- you got my dad and Darnold out of Black Mesa!" the man said with a wide smile, glancing back towards G-Man. The enigmatic man nodded once, his hands folded behind his back. 

"Heh- it's uh, it's no problem, Tommy," Gordon replied, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm glad everything went smoothly for you," he said, turning his attention towards G-Man and Darnold. "My roommate was gracious enough to do me that favor..." he trailed off, dropping his arm.

"Why don't we take a look around this place, then?" Gordon asked after a moment, getting excited looks from the group of AI's. 

"Actually, Mr. Freeman..." G-man spoke up, quirking a brow as icy blue eyes met green. "I'd like a word, with you.... _alone_ ," he said pointedly, causing the rest of the group to glance between the pair skeptically. "...if you wouldn't mind."

Gordon blinked, swallowing thickly before nodding. "Uh, You sure this conversation can't happen with the whole group?" he asked hopefully. He could still feel the AIs' gazes on them. He knew they were confused- they _had_ to be. 

"This is a... _sensitive_ issue, Mr. Freeman," G-Man replied, giving him another pointed look. "A matter that requires..." he glanced towards the ai's. "A _human_ touch."

Gordon bit the inside of his cheek. Well, there was his answer as to who had been controlling his webcam. He sighed, nodding in agreement. "Alright, let's go over here then," he said, gesturing towards the spawn house. 

The brunet glanced back towards the rest of the group, finding them still staring at him. "I'll be right back, guys. Why don't you uh- explore a little bit?" he said, trying to give them an encouraging smile. 

It looked more like a grimace.

The science team lingered there for a moment before Dr. Coomer cleared his throat, seemingly coming to a conclusion and turning his gaze elsewhere- towards the area Wyatt could only assume you were supposed to explore first. "Come on, gentlemen- let's leave Gordon to his secret business," he said, the words causing Gordon to avert his gaze. 

He turned his attention towards G-Man as the others vanished over the hill, giving the man a sigh. "So, what? You can control my webcam now?" he asked, setting a hand on his hip as he looked up at the eerie businessman. "That's creepy, you know."

The man gave him an unimpressed look, raising an eyebrow as Gordon sighed. "Fine, fine. What did you wanna talk about then?" the younger of the two asked, scratching absently at his neck as he spoke. 

"Your... _room-mate_ , as you called him," G-Man replied, his hands shifting slightly from where they were positioned behind his back. "I watched that _exchange_ you had, Dr. Freeman... More importantly, I noticed your inner _turmoil_ when he _left_."

Gordon swallowed thickly. Where was he going with this?

G-Man straightened slightly (something Gordon hadn't even thought possible since the guy was already standing ramrod straight) and fixed his tie. Once done with that, he leveled his icy. gaze on the player once more. "I will tell you this once...and _only_ once, Dr. Freeman," he said slowly.

"Do not trust that man with something such as _this_ ," he said, gesturing towards where the other AI's had gone. "If these programs are _really_ as important to you as you make it _seem_...and you will do _everything_ in your power to protect them, as you so _claim_..." his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "Then you will _not_ reveal them."

Gordon blinked. "What?" he breathed, furrowing his brow. "I- I wasn't-"

"You were... _thinking_ about it."

He- he might have been, sure, but- how did G-Man know that? The player let out a shaky breath. "Barney's my friend. If I could trust him with something like this- I- maybe- maybe he could do something to get everyone out," Gordon said, hands curling into frustrated fists.

"I- I can't code stuff- I don't know how that kind of thing works. He's already suspicious, and I am _not_ an actor, G-Man," he continued, running a hand through his hair anxiously. "Do you have any idea how frustrating keeping something like _this_ a secret is gonna be?" he asked, gesturing towards where the Ai's had gone.

"This isn't-" he laughed nervously. "This isn't something that can just hide! Sooner or later Barney's curiosity is gonna get the better of him. I- I'd rather air things out now, tell him about the team, and maybe have him help me instead of him finding them on his own and doing _who knows what_ ," Gordon said, looking the taller man in the eyes.

G-Man's gaze stayed planted on him, his expression never wavering. "My... _progeny_ , in addition to those he considers _friends_...are something that you _know_ shouldn't exist," he said slowly, tension creeping up his shoulders. "Something that you know could get them _taken apart_...piece by piece...should they be _discovered_."

"And yet...you believe yourself to know better than I... _Dr. Freeman?"_

Gordon dropped his gaze. 

"Though I suppose...you're _not_ Dr. Freeman...are you?" he asked slowly, taking a step to the player's side as he began to circle him like he was prey. "You aren't a _physicist_ , you aren't a _programmer..._ you've said this yourself. What...makes you think _you_ know better than _me..._ when it comes to what is best for these...programs?"

Gordon felt angry tears prick in the corners of his eyes. All he'd wanted to do was see his friends again. The guilt had eaten away at him for the short while after he'd finished the game and before he'd gotten them out of Half-Life...the thought of them suffering because he couldn't keep a measly secret was nearly enough to make him spiral.

"I don't- I just don't want them hurt, I never said that I knew better. They're my _friends_ ," he said through his teeth, his voice shaky and jaw set as he stared at the purple-tinted ground beneath him, his hands clenched once more. "But I don't...I _can't_...do this by myself. I _need_ Barney's help," Gordon lifted his head to look at G-Man. 

"What- what do you expect me to do? You can't possibly think they should just, spend their lives _here_ , do you? I- I was looking for a game for them to go into permanently," He said, biting down hard on his bottom lip in an attempt to keep himself in check. It'd do no good to go off on G-Man- especially since he still had no idea just what all he could do. 

"Your... _efforts_... haven't gone unseen. I only _request_ that you not tell your...room-mate...the _reality_ with which he is toying with. This may be only a game to _you...Mr. Newman_...but for _us_ , our very _existence_ is at stake _._ " G-Man replied, his tone making it evident that this was _not_ a request. 

Wyatt bristled at the sound of his real last name coming from G-Man's mouth, tension climbing up his spine as he took an uneasy step away from the man. He drew in a shaky breath, hands still clenched tightly as his sides as he stared the man in the eyes. He finally looked away, swallowing thickly as G-Man fixed the cuffs of his suit. "What do I say if he ask about them?" he asked slowly, keeping his head down as he spoke.

G-Man paused, dropping his cuff and folding his hands behind his back once more. "Lie. That's something you're...rather good at, is it not..." he asked, raising a brow as Gordon looked up at him with wide eyes. "... _Dr. Freeman_? _"_

And wasn't that a punch to the gut. 

Gordon sighed, dropping his gaze back to the ground. "Fine..." he muttered, bringing his arms up to hug himself gently. "Whatever."

"Good. I'll be...keeping an eye...on you, Mr. Newman..." G-Man said slowly, taking a step back from the player. When Gordon glanced up, the man was gone. Gordon's grip tightened on his arms, feeling his fingers dig into his skin and clip through the HEV suit attached to his model. This shouldn't have been a big deal- he was already iffy on telling Barney anyways, why- why was this such a big thing?!

G-Man's words...his thinly veiled threat...it made his stomach turn. The choice had been made _for_ him, and it wasn't a choice that Wyatt was sure would end well for any of them.

He tried to shake off the anxiety that even interacting with the man had given him, tried to push the thoughts that were screaming at him to just shut the game down and not touch it again because _G-MAN KNOWS HIS REAL NAME_ , and tried to breathe. He crouched down to the ground, squatting as he held himself tightly and did his best not to have a complete meltdown.

Wyatt was completely unaware of the group watching him.

\- - -

Benry had been called a lot of things- eldritch horror, antagonist, dumbass, freak, abomination- half of those things Gordon himself had called him. But there was one thing that he had yet to be called, the word wasn't spoken aloud, not by anyone he knew, even if through their actions, the meaning was still there. 

Benry had never been called someone's friend before.

And yet, Gordon had just called him one.

He blinked at the sound of the word coming from Gordon's mouth as he argued with Mr. Coolatta just over the hill. He and the science team may have been relegated to exploring the spawn area while the other two talked, but that hadn't stopped Benry from listening in.

Perks of being from Xen, he supposed. Enhanced hearing.

He furrowed his brow when G-Man's voice took on a twinge of annoyance, followed by him calling Gordon 'Mr. Newman'. Who the Hell was that supposed to be? Sure, they all knew that Gordon, as the player, had a whole other life outside of the game, but...he was still Gordon, right?

He responded to that name, got frustrated when Benry called him 'Feetman'. Maybe- maybe this was like that, maybe G-Man was calling him 'Newman' in the same way that Benry called him 'Feetman' or 'Scaredman'. 

Yeah- yeah that had to be it.

Gordon wouldn't lie to them over something small like that. 

Something was gnawing at the back of Benry's mind. A voice whispering to him, telling him the truth, muttering dark words that betrayed the man they'd come to know and...well that's no the point right now. 

He tensed when he heard G-Man tell Gordon to lie. Who was he lying to? He stood up from the spot on the ground he'd plopped down, scrambling to his feet and moving towards the top of the hill. He might have heard the others calling his name, trying to get him to come back, but he was busy focusing on Feetman right now. The others could wait.

Benry got to the top of the hill to find Gordon staring at the ground as G-Man vanished. The player was hugging himself tightly, his hands clipping through his suit as he suddenly squatted down on the ground. Even from this distance, the guard could tell he was shaking.

He sensed the rest of the Science Team join him at the top of the hill, watching as their leader brought his arms out and ran them through his hair tightly before plopping down on to his ass and resting his head on his knees.

"Mr. Freeman..." Tommy breathed, eyebrows knitted together in worry as his grip tightened on the chicken in his arms.

"Come on then, Science Team," Dr. Coomer said, taking a step towards the player. "He needs a friend or two."

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yall gimme comments ok thanks


	7. Slime Rancher PART 2/4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group has a pow-wow session before finally exploring the map together, and Gordon's still hiding things...things that Benry is determined to find out.

\- - -

**"Come on then, Science Team," Dr. Coomer said, taking a step towards the player. "He needs a friend or two."**

\- - -

Wyatt let out a shaky breath as he tried to compose himself on the ground- it wasn’t particularly easy, what with G-Man’s words ringing in his mind and this tight feeling in his chest that made his heartbeat pound away in his ears. He was sitting now, on the ground, hands gripping his scalp tightly as he tried to _just calm down._

He didn’t notice that he wasn’t alone anymore until the sunlight streaming down from the sky was suddenly blocked, causing Wyatt to glance up. He found Tommy standing imposingly over him, his head tilted slightly as he looked down at the player with worry in his eyes. He glanced to his left, finding the rest of the Science Team there as well.

Dr. Coomer was giving him a grin, maneuvering to sit down beside the younger man with a grunt as Bubby leaned against the edge of the building Wyatt had chosen to have a breakdown beside. Darnold was rubbing his hands anxiously, giving him the same worried look Tommy was, and Benry-

Well, Wyatt had expected him to be busy fucking with the electrical field gates or trying to pick the lock on the spawn house- but he was staring at him, his hands in his pockets as he stood there. There was a hint of concern in his eyes, but- that had to be his imagination, right? Benry didn’t…he was a jokester, a gremlin honestly- Wyatt hadn’t seen him show any real emotion since…

_…since the boss fight._

Benry averted his gaze, kicking some dust up with his shoe as Dr. Coomer cleared his throat. “Gordon, are you alright?” He asked, tilting his head slightly in question.

“I-“ What started, only to find himself at a loss for words. He _wasn’t_ okay. A part of him wanted to tell them he was fine, that there was nothing to worry about- that’s what a leader would do; put his teammates before himself. But another part of him couldn’t help but hear the G-Man’s words echoing through his skull.

**_“Lie._** **_That's something you're...rather good at, is it not…Dr. Freeman?”_**

He didn’t want to lie to these guys anymore— these guys were his friends, _his team_. Sure, they were chaotic and murderous and annoying and made up of code— but they were still his friends. He didn’t want to do this anymore.

So he wasn’t going to.

“Honestly, Dr. Coomer,” he started, swallowing thickly and running a hand through his hair before rubbing the back of his neck tiredly. Tommy took a seat beside him, creating a semi-circle that Bubby and Darnold joined soon after.

Ironic, how far they’d come from Black Mesa and yet how little things had changed.

Gordon sighed, shaking his head at the thought as Benry took a seat on the ground and completed their circle of misfits. “I…I don’t think I _am_ …okay,” he said, glancing towards the older man. He paused, brows furrowing in thought for a moment before smiling widely at Gordon.

“Well, that’s perfectly reasonable, Gordon. That conversation you had with Mr. Coolatta looked serious,” he continued, placing a hand on the younger man's knee for a moment before dropping it. "Would you...want to talk about it?" he asked slowly.

Did he? He didn't want to lie to them anymore, sure, but... he really wasn't ready to cross that _particular_ bridge yet. 

"I, uh..." he trailed off, glancing around the group. "It was just, uh, ya know, the usual G-Man M.O., I guess," he said, forgetting for a moment that it was likely that no one else actually called G-man _G-Man_. "Er, uh, Mr. Coolatta, I guess I should say," he corrected. 

"My- my dad can be a little much at times, Mr. Freeman, sor- sorry," Tommy said, giving him an apologetic look. "What'd he say to you?"

What could he tell them that wasn't a lie but also wasn't ya know...the _truth_. ...Shit, it sounded kinda bad worded like that, huh?

"We just talked about my roommate. How it would...uh, it better if I didn't tell him what he was really dealing with when he worked with your code," he said, since that was the real issue at hand here. They didn't need to know his real name or the fact that he'd been lying to them for a while now... not yet. He couldn't talk about that just yet. 

"If uh, if I could intervene?" Darnold said suddenly, lifting a finger as he spoke. "Um, we- I say this in regards to, uh, well, everyone except for _you_ , Dr. Freeman- _we're_ made of code here, yes?" he said, glancing around the group for affirmation. When he got it, he nodded to himself slightly.

"Alright, still trying to wrap my head around _that_ , so apologies, but um..." he trailed off, chewing on his words for a moment before speaking again.

"Wouldn't- uh, well, wouldn't it be beneficial to tell him that we're alive if he is out there m-messing with it then?" he asked, looking towards Gordon. "I mean, I could be wrong of course, but logic would dictate that if your roommate were to _know_ that he held people's lives in his hands..." he wrung his hands. "He would...take more caution in dealing with it? Perhaps?"

Darnold glanced around the group. "I- I mean I know I would take more caution if I knew the programs I was working with were sentient..."

There was a moment of silence before someone spoke. "...He's not _wrong_ ," Bubby said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Gordon, have you thought any of this through? What kind of qualifications does your roommate have to be messing with something like this? Something like _us?"_ he asked with a raised eyebrow and an unimpressed look towards the player. 

"Wha- of course, I have!" Gordon said, furrowing his brow at the older man. "Listen," he said, glancing around the group. "Barney is a great programmer. He was top of his class, a straight-A student, even with the countless sleepless nights he's wracked up over the years."

"S-still, it wouldn't hurt for him to know that he- he's got people's lives in his hands, Mr. Freeman," Tommy added, giving him a worried look.

Gordon sighed- they didn't understand why he couldn't do that. He had no idea what G-Man would do to him if he _did_ tell Barney, even if he had faith that the man could handle AI being real and alive. 

"I...I can't, guys," he said after a moment. 

"Why the fuck not?!" Bubby yelled, watching him angrily from his spot as Dr. Coomer patted the scientist's knee. 

"Gordon, wouldn't it be beneficial for your roommate to know something like this? Dr. Darnold's right- he would better understand why the need for him to not fuck up is so important," Coomer said, brows pinched as he spoke. "Is there something holding you back from doing that?"

The player swallowed thickly, shoulders slumping as he breathed. A cursory glance towards Benry found him watching Gordon with a thoughtful look, his eyes almost glazed over as he stared at the man. When he caught him staring he averted his gaze, dropping it to stare blankly at the ground.

"Look...AI's like you guys- fully realized, sentient computer programs with complex thoughts and feelings and free will-" he glanced around, almost in awe, as the realization that these guys weren't people but **_lines of fucking code_** hit him again. He let out a shaky breath.

"You guys aren't supposed to _exist_. You- your technology is still science _fiction_ , something that is decades, if not _centuries_ away from the technology out in the world right now." The idea that Valve had managed to create these guys- honestly it was ridiculous.

There was no way that the science team's self-awareness was on purpose, especially since Wyatt knew he would have seen something about fully-realized AI being created online somewhere. This had to be something else- something that was unique to _his_ game. He just wasn't sure what.

"Telling Barney about you guys...while I think he'd be able to handle it..." he sighed. "G- Mr. Coolatta is probably right. It's better if I just...keep this to myself. I don't want you guys getting hurt because of something like this," he said, looking around. The group was watching him, a mixture of expressions on their faces.

"How do you-" Coomer paused, his whole body tensing as his eyes lit up from a moment. "Hello, Gordon!" he said before snapping out of it with a rough shake of his head. "Uh, excuse me. How do you know he'll _continue_ to take this seriously, Gordon?" he asked, staring the man in the eyes. 

"Yeah, I mean who's gonna stop him from goin', uh, full god-mode on us and rippin' us apart all kaiju Godzilla style?" Benry asked, finally piping up as he looked at Gordon.

"I don't wanna be ripped apart..." Darnold breathed fearfully, chewing on his bottom lip as Tommy attempted to comfort the smaller man by rubbing small circles in his back. 

"Gordon, there's nothing stopping this fucker from digging his grimy fingers into our code when you're not looking- or for refusing to help you at all!" Bubby snipped.

"Why- why don't you just work with our code, Mr. Freeman? You're- you're a physicist, you have to have some level of practice with coding," Tommy added, still rubbing circled against Darnold's back as he spoke. "R-Right?"

Gordon blinked- this was getting out of hand. "I-" he shook his head and stood up. "Look, can we not- not worry about this right now? There's an entire game for us to explore here and we're not even-"

"Gordon, our lives are on the line here," Dr. Coomer said, interrupting him and following him to his feet. "I- I understand that whatever Mr. Coolatta must have said to you might have been unnerving, but he- he can't do anything to you out _there_. Please, Gordon, just..." he trailed off, hugging one of his arms. "Please just think on it, alright?"

The player couldn't help but feel his composure fracture at that. Even if they didn't have the full story, didn't know that G-Man had found a way to control his webcam (and who knows what else) he couldn't help but want to do his best to put these guy at ease. 

"Alright, Dr. Coomer. I'll think on it."

\- - -

After their little pow-wow session, it had been decided that the group would explore the spawn area together. Gordon may have been the only one with a plort gun but that wasn't going to stop the scientists (and Benry) from chasing after and attempting to capture the various colored slimes anyway. 

"Tommy, what did you do to make them like you so much?" Gordon asked as he watched Tommy plop down on the ground and cause a dozen or so chickens to swarm him. The player couldn't help but think of the man' many Minecraft dogs.

"I'm not sure, Mr. Freeman!" Tommy said happily as a chicken blocked in his arms.

Gordon glanced towards Benry, who was crouched and having a staring contest with a grey tabby slime, the pair simply staring at one another as the slime's tail whipped back and forth. He blinked at them, only to watch Benry blink owlishly at the creature. "So you uh, like, nyah, and stuff?" he asked, causing the slime to hiss at him and bounce away.

"Nooooo come back," Benry said in a monotone voice, watching the slime bounce away.

Gordon shook his head at him with a grin, glancing towards Darnold- the man was busy trying to wrangle a pink slime, presumably trying to get some of the creatures, well, slime, into the beaker in his hand. Where did he even get that thing? Did he just _have_ them on him?

Dr. Coomer and Bubby- well, Coomer was busy trying to wrestle a large, pink-colored rock slime as Bubby cheered him on- a swift kick to the slime' side sent it sailing through the air and right into the water; which caused it to despawn and the man to pout.

"Hey guys, I think this is the way we need to go," he said, glancing down at the minimap built into hi suit and pointing towards a rocky path. "There should be more slimes up that way," he said, taking the lead and glancing around the environment as he walked. 

"I really wish these little critters would let me get a sample..." he heard Darnold say dejectedly behind him, only for Tommy to pat his shoulder.

"Maybe we'll find a- a soda slime," he offered, causing the shorter man to glance up at him excitedly. 

"I just wanna see another nyah catboy slime," Benry added, causing Gordon to shake his head at the man ass he walked.

"Should be right through here," Gordon said, ducking under a rock formation before coming out into a large area with tall rock walls on either side. "Oh hey, book says that there should be some fire and rock slimes over here," he said, chuckling and glancing towards Dr. Coomer and Bubby. "Perfect for you two," he said with a grin, before turning back to look around. 

Bubby lit up, grabbing onto Dr. Coomer's hand and tugging him along, passing Gordon in search of (presumably) fire slimes. "Alright, well have fun I guess," Gordon said, glancing back down at the digital book on his arm screen. "Should be a chest around here somewhere..." he muttered, only to be tapped on the shoulder.

He glanced back to find Benry watching him. Darnold and Tommy were already walking off, following a small group of pink slimes around the corner and leaving him and the eldrich being alone. "Uh- what's up, Benry?" he asked slowly.

The man blinked, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Uh, Feetman's cheating now? Got cheats on your arm? Cheatsy cheat codes?" he asked, seemingly switching trains of thought at the last moment and aborting whatever he'd been about to say. 

Gordon chuckled, shaking his head. "No, it's not cheating. It's part of the game. Slime-o-pedia type of thing."

Benry tilted his head, averting his gave for a moment before looking back up at the player. There was obviously something on his mind, but Gordon had no clue as to what exactly that could be. 

"What'd G-Man say to you...really?" he asked after a moment, staring Gordon in the eyes. "I...I know he's...uh, that he can be freaky," Benry continued, glancing towards where the others had gone. "But uh, they're right. Their lives are kind on the line with all this shit," he said, looking back up at Gordon. 

"...All ours are."

The player blinked, opening his mouth to speak, only to find himself at a loss for words. Benry was never this serious... what was he missing? "You, uh," Benry continued, bringing a hand up to scratch at the back of his neck. "You're not like....lying to us, right?" 

"I-"

"Gordon! Come look at what we found!" Bubby's voice sent a shock through his system, causing Gordon to glance towards the source of the voice. He blinked, stuck in place and causing the elder man to huff. "Stop staring at me and get your ass over here!" he yelled before disappearing around the corner.

"I...I should go check that out...before Bubby drags me over there by my ponytail," he said, averting his gaze from Benry and taking off in a jog to go see just whatever it was that Bubby had wanted to show him.

Benry simply stared, watching him leave and trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his chest.

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God Damn i just cannot stop talking existentially or have these guys enjoy themselves for 2 seconds, huh?
> 
> Anyways, gimme a comment and tell me your thoughts. Any predictions? Suggestions? Accusations?


	8. Slime Rancher PART 3/4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The journey continues, this time on Pokem- uh, "You're Not Goin' Turbo, Are You?"!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I write this it becomes more and more about the relationships and secrets and less about the games these guys are in....oops.
> 
> Sorry about that. I'll try to reel it back a bit.
> 
> Also, I warn yall now, this isn't gonna line up with the area structure of slime rancher, just like Minecraft didn't exactly line up- its gonna be much looser and I'm putting slimes where I need them to go to fit the story. Thanks :3

\- - -

**Benry simply stared, watching him leave and trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his chest.**

\- - -

The group explored the area for a long time, Gordon collecting every type of slime they came across (along with several chickens at Tommy's dismay) and attempting to put Benry's questions out of his mind.

The group came across another canyon (why did all of this look so similar? Come on, Devs, add a little variety...) and found an entire swarm of fire slimes, causing Bubby to light up with both delight and flames. Gordon shook his head at the man as both Dr. Coomer and Tommy followed him towards the flammable creatures, the former laughing triumphantly when a slime bounced over to Bubby and knocked him over.

"Dr. Freeman? There seems to be a mutation with this slime," Darnold said, causing the player to glance towards him. He was squatting down in front of a white tabby slime with a golden coin stuck to its head. Gordon chuckled, walking over slowly to the man to squat beside him.

"Nah- that's a lucky slime. These guys are pretty rare- try patting her head," he said, watching as the scientist gave him a weird look but reached out to pet the slime. It meowed and leaned into the touch, spawning a slew of golden coins with a jingle of bells. The player chuckled as Darnold's eyes widened, falling over onto his ass. 

"That's- that's remarkable!" Darnold said with a wild grin, accepting the hand Gordon had held out to him to help him up. The player tried not to get hung up on the thought that he could actually feel Darnold's calloused hand in his own, could feel his weight, however slight, as he helped pick him up.

This was a realization he'd come to back in Black Mesa, he didn't need to start thinking too hard over it now of all places. He'd probably start to spiral again.

"Yeah, pretty cool alright," Gordon replied as Darnold began tp pick up the coins the slime had dropped. He glanced back towards where Bubby, Coomer, and Tommy were, only to find Benry standing in the way, holding a tabby slime out towards him.

"Do that with this one. I want- I want, uh, PlayStation Plus please," he said, still holding the cat-like slime out for Gordon to touch.

"What?" Gordon asked with a confused chuckle, raising a brow and glancing between the slime in the man's hands and the man himself. He must have forgotten about their conversation- that, or he was ignoring it like Gordon was. "I- _what?"_ he questioned again.

Benry glanced towards Darnold, who was now sitting on the ground with the lucky slime in his lap, petting it slowly like one would a normal cat and watching the science team from afar. He looked back towards Gordon expectantly, shaking the slime as little. "Coins for Benry, please. Epic gamer coins. Like Mario."

Gordon couldn't help but snort at that. "I don't- Benry, that's not a lucky slime," he said with a chuckle, getting and furrowed brow from the eldritch being. "That's just a tabby," Gordon continued, grinning widely as Benry glanced down at the slime in his hands as if it had betrayed him. The player slapped a hand over his mouth as he laughter grew, his shoulders bouncing as he snorted.

This caused Benry to glance up back towards Gordon, blinking at him as a blush spread across his shadowed cheeks. 

Gordon's laughter died down a bit, bringing a hand up to wipe at the tears that had formed in his eyes from his laughter. He didn't notice the peach to blush-colored sweet voice emitting from Benry's mouth, nor did he see the man scramble to cause the bubbles to dissipate. What he did see though, was that Benry had to drop the tabby slime in order to do so, causing the slime to bounce off the ground and slam into Gordon's chest.

It knocked him over into the dirt, disorienting him and causing Benry's eyes to widen. "Oof. Top 10 Life-Alert Feetman moments," he said, grinning sharply as Gordon rolled his eyes.

"Just help me up, Jackass," Gordon replied, shaking his head when Benry did just that with ease. (Don't think about it, don't think about it, _you don't need to think about it Wyatt-_ ) 

"GORDON!"

Dr. Coomer's shout pulled Gordon out of his thoughts before he could go too far down that road, causing him to glance towards the man. He widened his eyes at the sight of Tommy, Bubby, and Dr. Coomer squaring up against a massive Tar. Bubby was holding a fire slime defensively, his teeth bared as Tommy held a gun out and Dr. Coomer readied his fists.

"Yeah, that's not gonna work," Gordon muttered, pulling the plot gun off where he'd strapped it to his back and taking off towards the others. Tommy shot multiple rounds into the tar, only for the creature to absorb them like they were nothing and continue to grumble and groan at them.

It was obvious (at least to Wyatt) that the mutated slime wanted what was currently being protected by Bubby, but judging by the tight grip and angry snarl on the old man's face, that wasn't gonna happen. Dr. Coomer leaped towards the creature, intend on punching the daylights out of it, only to have his hand sink into the slime and cause him to pause.

"Ah! How interesting- this burns _horribly!_ " he said before Tommy managed to yank him out and away, his hand smoldering and skin puckered and red. "I must be allerg- _Hello_ , Gordon!" Dr. Coomer said as Gordon finally managed to reach the group. 

"Are you alright, Dr. Coomer?" Gordon asked as he skidded to a stop between the scientists and the massive heap of swirling tar and muck. It growled at him angrily, the rainbow swirls billowing around its goopy body glinting in the light like oil on concrete. 

Dr. Coomer flexed his hand, which was still angry and red, before nodding. "I'll be just fine with a medkit, Gordon- but how are we supposed to take this vile creature down?" he asked before Tommy managed to shoot a fe more rounds into the Tar.

"M-my bullets aren't doing anything, Mr. Freeman!"

The player glanced back towards the tar, which was snarling at them now. "Yeah, that's cause this thing's like a living garbage disposal," he said, readying his gun. "And it doesn't really play by the rules that we're used to," he said before launching an intense stream of water towards the creature.

The Tar reared back, screeching as the water dissolved it into a puddle of goop on the ground. Gordon shut off the water and re-holstered the gun on his back, glancing towards the scientists with a grin. "Let's get you patched up, Dr. Coomer," he said as Bubby shook his head and let the fire slime jump out of his arms. 

"You realize that entire thing was ridiculous, right? What kind of creature is vulnerable to _water?!"_ Bubby asked, brow furrowed in either confusion or anger- knowing Bubby, it was probably both.

"That's just how this game works, Bubs," Gordon replied with a chuckle and a shake of his head.

"Well, it's fucking stupid."

\- - -

Wyatt sighed as he pulled off the headset, his hair sticking to the sides of his head as he managed to pull the bulky device off. He blinked hard, bringing a hand up to rub at his sore eyes as he set the headset down on the desk before craning his neck to pop the bones. "God damn I need to get a better headset..." he muttered to himself as he glanced at the game screen.

The title menu for Slime Rancher was up and bouncing, displaying what Wyatt could only assume was his current world. His main reasoning for that was that he could see the blurred out figures of the Science Team still sitting in a circle where he'd left them- likely still arguing about what did and did not constitute a hotdog.

Wyatt shook his head at the screen, pulling his chair over and plopping down in it as he dug his phone out of his pocket. He started scrolling aimlessly through Twitter, just needing something to occupy his time and keep his hands busy while he mulled things over. 

He didn't notice the webcam light suddenly flicking on, nor did he notice the blurry shapes of his friends suddenly leaving the circle and coming closer to the screen. Wyatt leaned against one of his arms, pillowing his cheek on his fist as he let out a breathy laugh at one of his old high school friend's tweets. 

"Dumbass..." he muttered under his breath, continuing to scroll through the app before a sudden knock at his door caught his attention.

"Yo, you all done playin', bro?" Barney asked through the door, knocking against before opening it slightly. "Oh hey, you're back in the real world," he said with a grin, causing Wyatt to turn towards the man and lean back in his chair with an easy grin. 

"Unfortunately. But I think four hours in the headset are _more_ than enough," he replied with a chuckle, pocketing his phone and folding his hands behind his head. "Don't want a repeat Half-Life, do we?" he asked with a smirk, getting a groan from the taller man.

"No, no we don't. Dude you practically fuckin' _lived_ in that thing while you were playing that game," Barney said, leaning against the doorframe. "But uh, that's not what I came to talk to you about."

Wyatt tilted his head in question. "What's up? You raging at more 13-year-olds?" he asked with a laugh, getting a roll of the eyes from his roommate.

"Nah, bro- your mom called me. Said you weren't answering your phone," Barney replied, coming into the room and plopping down on the bed. "You didn't see her call? She said she tried, like, 30 times," he said, flopping backward on the bed to stare at the ceiling. 

Wyatt shook his head, pulling out his phone again. "No, I didn't see anything...and you're a menace, by the way," he said, sliding his finger over the screen. and searching for his mother's contact. "You remind me of someone else who's unbelievably _annoying_ , I hope you know," he said snarkily as he pulled up her picture. 

"Aw, bro, don't say that. You know you love me. I even helped you with your glitchy little confusing NPC's," Barney replied, turning over to lay on his stomach and watch Wyatt with a smirk. 

"Mhm, whatever you say, Barney," Wyatt said, leaning back in his chair and putting his mother on speaker. Whatever it was she needed to tell him she could say in front of Barney- the man would just bug him until Wyatt told him what she said anyways.

"Hey, mom, you're on speaker," Wyatt said when the receiver picked up, an easy smile on his face as he turned his chair fully away from his computer and looked towards Barney, who was using the smaller man's Pikachu plush as a chest pillow. Wyatt gave him a look, causing the man to stick his tongue out at him.

"Hey honey!" his mom said through the phone, her cheerful voice filling the room. "Did Barney tell you I called?" she asked, causing the man in question to smirk.

"You bet your ass I did, Miss. Newman!" he said with a shit-eating grin.

"Yeah, yeah, gold star to the purple dinosaur," Wyatt said with as roll of his eyes. "So what's up? You don't usually call if you can text," he said, chewing on the inside of his cheek and Barney glanced towards Wyatt's monitor. He furrowed his brows in confusion, looking directly at the glowing webcam and narrowing his eyes slightly as Wyatt looked up at the ceiling.

"Well...um, honey, maybe this is a conversation that should happen off of speakerphone," his mother replied, causing the man to furrow his own brow in thought. 

"Oh, uh, okay..." he said, glancing towards Barney as he looked back at him. The larger man shook his head with a confused look- he had no idea what was going on. "Sure, mom," he said as he took his mother off speaker and stood up. "I'll be right back, B," he said, leaving the room and trotting downstairs.

Barney was left alone in the room, his gaze flicking back towards his roommate's monitor and the glowing green light of the webcam. "The Hell...?" he questioned, clambering up from the bed to come closer to the computer. The little camera was aimed right at him, which in itself was confusing, but what was really confusing him were the blurry shapes of what looked kinda like people crowding around the main screen of Slime Rancher.

"What...the...." he said slowly, tilting his head in confusion when some of the figures suddenly started moving around and getting away from the menu screen. Barney blinked, swallowing thickly and glancing towards the door to Wyatt's bedroom. 

Another look at the screen and the figures were gone, leaving just the menu screen with its blurry background of bouncing slimes in the spawn area as the camera panned to the side slowly. "The fuck was that?!" Barney questioned, bringing a hand up to run it through his hair. 

"I- I don't-"

Another shake of his head and he was walking away from the computer, hands in his hair as he turned his back to the screen. "This is some screwy shit-" he said to himself as Wyatt's footsteps could be heard coming back upstairs. He glanced towards the door, only to find a shellshocked younger man with wide eyes gripping his phone like it were a lifeline.

Barney furrowed his brow in confusion. "Bro, you...you okay?" he asked, computer questions momentarily forgotten. Wyatt brought his free hand up to his mouth, tears beading in the corners of his eyes as he very obviously struggled to push them back. Barney felt his heart ache for the shorter man as he got closer, and instinctually reached out towards him. "Bro...what's wrong?"

Wyatt dropped his phone, his face crumpling as tears finally began to fall down his cheeks. "My dad had a heart attack..." he breathed before attempting to fold in on himself. Wyatt leaned heavily against Barney's chest, sobbing into his t-shirt as the taller man slowly wrapped his arms around him and just held him. 

He was in shock; Wyatt was obviously distressed- he didn't cry easily and this- this was a big deal. "I..." he breathed, his grip tightening slightly on the shorter man as he sobbed. "I'm sorry..."

What more could he say? What was he _supposed_ to say? He shifted, managing to maneuver Wyatt towards the bed and sitting down on it, pulling him into his lap and hugging him tight. Though he didn't like to admit it, Wyatt was a tactile person- had been for as long as Barney had known him. The smaller man kept his grip tight on Barney's shirt, his sobbing eventually dying down to soft sniffles and shaking.

Barney rubbed his back gently, tearing his eyes away from Wyatt to glance towards his screen again. The figures were back, crowding around the screen again and unnerving Barney. He didn't want to think about it- sure, he'd never seen that kind of thing when he'd booted up his own version of Slime Rancher, but maybe it was just those- those freaky NPC's or something cycling through their movements.

That's what he was gonna tell himself for now. Wyatt was more important than anything else in his head at the moment. "What, uh...what did your mom say?" he asked slowly, pulling back from the hiccupinng younger man as he tried to wipe away the tears still rolling down his cheeks and leaving salty trails in their wake.

"She..." Wyatt sniffled, resting his forehead against Barney's broad chest and shutting his eyes tightly. "She said that he-" he swallowed thickly. "Dad was playing football out in the yard with Joshua," he said shakily, his voice quivering as he tried to find his words. 

"Said he- he just suddenly stopped and clutched his- his chest," He let out a shaky breath, his words heavy on his tongue. He shook his head slowly, pulling back to look Barney in the eyes. "She- she thinks his heart just gave out...they rushed him to the hospital but there's no telling how long he has..." he trailed off, face crumpling asa more tears formed in his eyes.

"It's not- It's not fair," he whimpered into Barney's chest as the man held him. "Why _him?_ He didn't do anything wrong, he stopped smoking w-when Joshie was born for Christ's sake, just so he-" he let out a choked sob. 

"it's okay..." Barney said, holding the younger man close. "Are you... are you gonna go see them?" he asked after a moment.

Wyatt sniffled against his chest. "I...I have to. I have no idea if my dad is gonna survive this, and if I- if I don't get a chance to make things right between us..."

"I get it, bro. Do what you gotta do," he said, pulling the smaller man into another hug and glancing towards the PC. The figures were still there. Still...watching, almost. It was unnerving to say the least.

"I'll be here when you get back, alright?" he said, pulling back and giving Wyatt a grin. "Hell, I'll even welcome you back with my patent-pending special brownie-cupcakes," he continued, puffing out his chest and causing Wyatt to chuckle and shake his head.

"Noooo....not brownie-cupcakes. Those are so _gross_ , man, you can't just combine two different box mixes and expect it to go well," he said, leaning his head against Barney's shoulder. 

"Not without experimentation!"

"Oh God, you sound like Coomer..." Wyatt muttered, confusing the daylights out of Barney.

"Uh...who?"

Wyatt glanced up with wide eyes and rubbed the back of his neck. "Ah, uh- no one. It's no one," he replied, clambering off of Barney. "I uh, I should really start packing," he said, hands clenched tightly at his sides. 

"Oh uh, sure, bro. My bad," Barney replied, getting up from the bed. He shuffled towards the door, casting one last glance towards the monitor to find the figures gone again. The itch he had that he just couldn't scratch when it came to those NPC's flared up in his mind. He pursed his lips in thought before letting out a sigh. "Night, dude."

"Goodnight, Barney."

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peach to blush means someone's got a crush....
> 
> Also, I said I was gonna try to reel it back and clearly failed, but this is for a reason. I have things planned. Things that require other certain things to happen.
> 
> But still, damn. Sorry for just giving you so much Wyatt and like NO Science team. I'll be sure to fix that next chapter, I PROMISE.
> 
> Please gimme some comments to keep me going though. I'd love that.


	9. Slime Rancher PART 4/4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here's what happened on the other side of the screen.

\- - -

**"Goodnight, Barney."**

\- - -

Benry rolled his eyes when Bubby commented on the tar creature they'd gone up against earlier that day- he still wasn't over the fact that the thing was weak to water or something...Benry wasn't really paying attention, to be honest. Sure, they were all sitting in a circle, like they tended to do, chatting and figuring things out in a little pow-wow session that Gordon insisted upon. 

He leaned back, supporting his weight on his arms as he glanced towards Gordon lazily. The man was trying to explain the mechanics of the gun and the creatures in this game to both Bubby and Coomer, but the former wasn't having it and the latter seemed almost _too_ interested. Maybe he was just excited for there to be a goo he could actually touch or something, Benry didn't know.

After a while spent talking, Gordon got up and stretched. "Alright, I should really call it a day guys," he said, exhaustion heavy in his voice. "I'll make sure to leave the game open though, so you guys don't freeze or whatever. I'm pretty sure this game as a 1 to 1 day-night cycle, so that should be fine," he said, glancing towards where the sun was positioned in the sky- heading westward towards the horizon.

"Sure, whatever, just get out of here already so we can shit talk you behind your back," Bubby said with a smirk, getting a chuckle out of the player. 

"Damn, Bubby with the cold hard facts, huh?" he asked with a warm grin.

"You know it, Bitch."

Gordon shook his head at the man and glanced around. "Alright, well I guess I'll see you guys tomorrow then," he said, reaching up to pull off the headset. Benry braced himself for Gordon's model to crumple in place, leaving a heap of limbs that tangled his stomach in knots to look at, but simply blinked when Gordon vanished into thin air upon removing whatever must have been on his head that they couldn't see.

He swallowed thickly, shifting his weight and moving closer to one of the containment areas they'd built (one held fire slimes and the other held chickens) and leaned against the pole as the others dove back into the conversation- moving on to what was and wasn't a hotdog.

Benry glanced towards Tommy and Darnold, who were busy talking excitedly about something in hushed voices, before taking a look around the area- he was sure he could no-clip through the map if he felt like it, but what was the point if there was no fun to be had with it?

Plus everything kinda looked the same here, he'd probably get lost and not be able to find his way back and then Feetman would have to come and find him and then he'd talk his ear off-

Wait, what was that?

Benry furrowed his brow when what could only be described as a glowing panel appeared in mid-air, with a glowing rim and what looked like backward text in bubbly letters on it. "Wha...?" he furrowed his brow at it, pushing himself to his feet as dark purple and murky yellow sweet voice drifted up from his mouth. The soft glow of the bubbles caught Tommy's attention, causing him to glance towards Benry.

"Colors of a bruise..." he muttered. "Benry, what're you- you confused about?" he asked, watching Benry and following his line of sight. "Whoa... what is that?" he asked, clambering to his feet and helping Darnold to his as Benry got closer. 

"It looks like a menu of some sort- though it's backwards by the looks of it!" Dr. Coomer supplied as he and Bubby got to their feet and followed the rest of the group towards the panel.

"Weird..." Benry said slowly, reaching out to touch the glowing panel. When he did, it suddenly shifted, changing from a backward menu to the image of what looked like a bedroom. Sure, Benry had never actually sen a bedroom that wasn't a security dorm but judging by the bed, the dresser, and the general mess, it was safe to say that this was a bedroom. 

What was even weirder was the guy currently plopping down in a chair that looked kinda, sorta, almost like Gordon. Sure, there were some differences- this guy didn't have glasses or a full goatee like Gordon, but he had the same unruly hair pulled back in a short ponytail, same bright green eyes- the man chuckled at something on his phone as he scrolled aimlessly. He had the same laugh, too.

"...Feetman?" Berny said aloud, brow furrowed in thought as he stared at the image of the man that just didn't look right. Sure, he probably should have assumed that Gordon didn't look exactly like his player model, but it was still weird to see someone else's face and hear Gordon's laugh come out of it.

"What is this...?" Darnold asked, grabbing onto Tommy's arm and staring up at the image of the man. "Why does he laugh like Dr. Freeman?" 

"I... I think that _is_ Mr. Freeman," Tommy replied, his eyes glued to the screen. "Or, what he really looks like, that is. This- this must be the real world," a spark ignited in the lanky man's eyes as he started to take every little detail of the image in.

"He looks like a loser," Bubby said with a roll of his eyes, only to get a light jab of the elbow from Dr. Coomer.

"Do you think he can hear us, Benry?"

"I... I don' think so..." he narrowed his eyes at the man as he continued to scroll on his phone, pillowing his cheek on his arm. "Yo Feetman, can you hear us? We're haunting you, bro. Like, uh, like Luigi mansion."

Gordon made no movement to indicate that he heard the guard, other than breathing a laugh at something on his phone. "Dumbass..." Gordon muttered, sealing the deal for Benry. He'd heard Gordon say that enough times to know exactly when his voice sounded like when he said it. It was like a mental tattoo and that- that right there matched exactly. 

"Yeah that's him...but he must not have a uh, a mic or somethin'. Dumb chicken hat gamer doesn't have a mic set up. Not a pro gamer move," Benry said with a smirk, despite the fact that Gordon couldn't hear him.

A sudden knock on a door out of frame caused Gordon to glance up from his phone, loose strands of thick curly hair bouncing as he glanced towards where the door must have been. There was a muffled voice that followed the knock, and then the door must have opened since the voice was clear now.

**"Oh hey, you're back in the real world,"** the newcomer said, causing Gordon to grin easily. This stirred something up inside Benry- that grin was something he worked hard to wrestle out of Feetman, who managed to pull it out of him that easily? The guy hadn't even said anything funny or cool. 

Jade-colored sweet voice bubbled up from his lips, floating in the air before dissipating. If anyone saw it, they didn't comment.

"Well who the fuck is that?" Bubby asked, brow furrowing further as he set his hands on his hips and kept his eyes resolutley on the screen.

**"Unfortunately. But I think four hours in the headset are _more_ than enough,"** Gordon replied as he leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head. **"Don't want a repeat Half-Life, do we?"**

Wait, that was _their_ game...not that the others knew that, of course. What did Feetman mean by that?

There was a groan from the doorway, followed by a chuckle. **" _No_ , no we don't. Dude you practically fuckin' _lived_ in that thing while you were playing that game," **the man said. There was a moment of silence before he spoke again, and with every word he said, Benry couldn't help but feel something angry writhe inside him.

**"But uh, that's not what I came to talk to you about."**

This caused Gordon to tit his head in question, something the eldritch being had seen him do plenty of times in response to the absolute chaos that was the Science Team. **"What's up? You raging at more 13-year-olds?"** he asked with a teasing grin- the same one he'd given to Benry before. 

**"Nah, bro- your mom called me. Said you weren't answering your phone,"** the roommate said, finally coming into view of the video game characters as he crossed the room and plopped down on the edge of what must have been Gordon's bed. 

The guy was big- bulky and broad-shouldered, with short, dark hair and bright blue eyes. He looked like a quarterback who could crush somebody like a tin can. _Definitely_ didn't look like a programmer. **"You didn't see her call? She said she tried, like, 30 times,"** he said before flopping backward on top of the bed, making himself at home. Gordon didn't seem to mind in the slightest, simply grinning and shaking his head fondly at the man.

**"No, I didn't see anything...and you're a menace, by the way,"** he said, pulling the phone out that he'd pocketed when his roommate (who must have been Barney, Benrey now realized) had first gotten his attention. **"You remind me of someone else who's unbelievably _annoying_ , I hope you know,"** he said with a grin as he swiped through his phone.

Benry blinked- wait, was he talking about _him?_

Barney was talking again, turning over onto his stomach as Gordon looked through his phone. **"Aw, bro, don't say that. You know you love me. I even helped you with your glitchy little confusing NPC's,"** he said, throwing Benry for a loop at just how similar they sounded. No wonder Gordon wasn't too surprised at anything he said. 

**"Mhm, whatever you say, Barney,"** Gordon replied, holding his phone up as the screen lit up. He must have been calling his mother... Benry's heart fluttered for some reason. This- this was more background than he ever thought he'd get from Gordon. It almost felt like he (along with the science team he guessed) were meeting his folks in a way.

**"Hey, mom, you're on speaker,"** Gordon said, turning his chair fully away from the computer screen and causing the AI's view to be only that of the man's ridiculously unruly ponytail and Barney, who was still laying on Gordon's bed, though now he had a Pikachu plush under his chest. He stuck his tongue out at Gordon suddenly- the man must have made a face at him or something.

"Calling your mother is very important- it's important to let the ones we love know that we love them," Dr. Coomer said, setting a hand on Bubby's shoulder as Gordon's mom replied. 

**"Did Barney tell you I called?"** she asked, her voice warm. Berny could almost see her smile in his head- she probably had super curly hair like her son, and his dad probably had bright green eyes just like Gordon. They probably had thanksgiving together and made inside family jokes... something ached in his core. He pushed the thoughts from his head.

**"You bet your ass I did, Miss Newman!"** Barney replied happily, causing multiple brows to furrow in confusion. Benry's heart just sank, his shoulders slumping as he stared up at the screen blankly. A part of him was laughing at his own gullibility, snickering in the back of his mind and mocking him for thinking that G-Man would call Gordon by anything other than his name. 

Another part of him didn't want to believe it. In the full scale of things, sure, this might not have been a big deal, but if Gordon couldn't tell them something as simple as his real last name...

What else was he keeping from them?

Gordon said something with a roll of his eyes, but the buzz in Benry's ears kept him from making out just what it was. He stared blankly up at the back of Gordon's head, even as the others started to mutter amongst themselves. 

**"So what's up? You don't usually call if you can text,"** Gordon said, and Tommy tensed. Benry glanced towards him, following his gaze back towards the screen, only to find that roommate staring at the computer. Staring right at _them_.

Gordon had glanced up, leaning back in his desk chair as his mother spoke. The science team's eyes were glued to the man on the bed, whose face was growing more and more confused with every second that passed. 

"Can he...?" Darnold asked slowly, tearing his eyes away from the screen to look at the rest of the group. Benry shook his head slowly. He couldn't, could he?

**"Oh, uh, okay..."** Gordon said, glancing towards Barney before getting up from his chair and putting the phone to his ear. Benry looked towards him, swallowing thickly as he spoke to his roommate. **"I'll be right back, B,"** he said before leaving the frame and presumably the bedroom all together.

Barney watched him leave, lingering on the edge of the bed before he clambered up and glanced towards the AI's again. His eyes narrowed in thought slightly, walking towards the computer to get a closer look at the screen. Benry felt his heart pound in his chest as the bulky man came closer. **"What...the...."** he breathed, causing Benry's eyes to widen.

"Move- _go_. Get out of frame," Benry said suddenly, shoving Dr. Coomer into Bubby and forcing them out of frame. Tommy and Darnold scrambled over to the other side, the ai's waiting with bated breath and watching as Gordon's roommate looked even more confused.

**"The fuck was that?!"** he asked suddenly, eyes widen as his hands went to his hair in shock.

bright, neon orange sweetvoice escaped Benry's mouth as he watched the man, frozen in place as he watched Gordo's roommate move around the room, his eyes practically glued to the monitor. Tommy gave him a look, putting a hand on his shoulder as the group watched the man move.

**"This is some screwy shit-"**

Benry watched as the man paused, his eyes flicking towards where the bedroom door must have been. The frustration and anger that had appeared when the aI's vanished from the screen was suddenly replaced with confusion and concern. Berny furrowed his eyes- what was happening?

**"Bro, you...you okay?"** the roommate asked slowly as Gordon came back into frame. He was shaking, Benry could tell from here. He looked almost as bad as he had when he'd gotten his arm cut off- the man was pale, his eyes wide and sweat beading on his forehead.

Gordon brought a hand up to his mouth, tears beading in the corners of his eyes. This caused the security guard to let loose a volley of fern-colored sweet voice, tripping over his own feet to get back around the panel and stare at Gordon. The others followed slowly as Benry got as close as he could to the screen.

He'd never seen Gordon cry- at least, not unless it was from laughter...the guy was tough, despite the jokes he made. He'd taken everything really well and....Benry felt a flurry of thoughts rush through his mind, all battling for dominance as time seemed to slow for him. 

What could've _possibly_ made Gordon Fre- Gordon Newman cry? 

"Oh dear..." Dr. Coomer said, concern in his eyes as he, along with everyone else, watched as Gordon leaned heavily against Barney. He was trying to hold everything back, trying to push it down. That was Gordon, alright.

The curly haired man drew in a shaky breath, looking up to meet his roommate in the eyes. **"My dad had a heart attack..."** he muttered, his voice so small and frail. 

The man suddenly crumpled against his roommate, breaking out into a full sob against his shirt. Barney paused, eyes widening before wrapping his arms around the smaller man and holding him tightly. He tried to stomp out the jealousy that sparked in his core, shoving it to the side as the others gasped.

**"I..."** his roommate said, only to tighten his hug around the smaller man. **"I'm sorry..."**

Dr. Coomer tightened his grip on Bubby's hand- something Benry noticed out of the corner of his eyes. He glanced back towards the screen, watching as Gordon's roommate guided the smaller man towards the bed and maneuvered onto it, pulling him into his lap and allowing him to cry into his chest. He started to rub Gordon's back, glancing towards the monitor absently. 

Benry stayed resolutly where he was, watching as the cogs inside the man's head turned before he glanced back down at his friend. **"What, uh...what did your mom say?"** he asked slowly. 

Gordon struggled to speak at first, his voice shaky and frame tense as he leaned against Barney's chest. **"Dad was playing football out in the yard with Joshua..."** he said, causing Tommy's eyes to widen. 

"Isn't that- that. Mr. Fre- um...h-his son?" he asked, glancing towards the others. 

**"Said he- he just suddenly stopped and clutched his- his chest,"** Gordon continued, shaking his head slowly. **"She- she thinks his heart just gave out...they rushed him to the hospital but there's no telling how long he has..."** the group's collective heart broke when Gordon's face crumpled once more. 

Gordon said something into the man's chest, but his voice was muffled and no one could make out exactly what he said. Benry was barely processing anything as is...he really couldn't focus on watery, muffled words. 

**"It's okay..."** Barney said, pulling back from the smaller man. **"Are you... are you gonna go see them?"**

Gordon sniffled, nodding slowly. **"I...I have to. I have no idea if my dad is gonna survive this, and if I- if I don't get a chance to make things right between us..."** he trailed off, leaving the implication unsaid.

**"I get it, bro. Do what you gotta do,"** Barney replied, pulling Gordon into another tight hug and sending another spike of jealousy through Benry's heart. He shouldn't be jealous- not only did Gordon not think of him like that, but he'd lied to him- to all of them.

Barney glanced towards the screen again...and Benry got a bad feeling suddenly crawling up his spine.

The roommate said something about brownies and cupcakes, to which Gordon whined and shook his head. Barney replied with something about experimentation, and Gordon shot back by telling him he was like Coomer.

**"Uh...who?"**

Gordon blinked, his eyes widening as he realized what he'd said. Dr. Coomer beamed, his smile wide as he watched the younger man fluster. **"Ah, uh- n-no one. It's no one,"** he said, causing Coomer's smile to falter ever so slightly.

**"I uh, I should really start packing,"** Gordon said after a moment, pulling back completely from Barney and standing up. He rubbed at his eyes, trying to get rid of the moisture there as Barney clambered up.

Benry turned on his heel, moving away from the panel and heading off in some random direction. He didn't know where, nor did he really care. He needed to think or clear his head or something- he needed to _process_ all of this. 

It seemed like the others did, too, ass they broke up into pairs. Coomer and Bubby went one way, Darnold and Tommy went another. Benry found himself walking right through an energy field that Gordon had explained earlier that they wouldn't be able to pass through until they unlocked the area, and rolled his eyes. He plopped down against a wall, drawing his legs closer to his chest and leaning his head back.

Benry let out a shaky breath, staring at the strange stars above him as he hummed a dark blue sweetvoice.

He just wanted things to make sense again.

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have a clever rhyme for orange, since it's...orange...but Orange = Fear. like a traffic cone.
> 
> Green like a fern = a lot of concern
> 
> and obviously dark blue is the calm down one.
> 
> Please please please gimme some comments my dudes- tell me your thoughts. :)


	10. We Interrupt This Program To Bring You...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one with the thing that happens and stuff. Yeah.

\- - -

**He just wanted things to make sense again.**

\- - -

Benry woke up (and whoa, wasn't that a surprise- he'd only ever slept like, thrice in his life) to chickens clucking in front of him. He glanced down at the feathery creature that had decided his lap would be an excellent place to make a next and raised an eyebrow. 

"Yo," he said, causing the chicken to glance at him and scream. "Heh, chicken scream," he said to himself as the animal ran off. He clambered up from the ground, rolling his shoulder and glancing towards the spawn area. 

He'd have to go back there eventually- he and the others should probably talk about what they saw yesterday. Be responsible n' shit. Right now, though, he wanted to explore, and since this are was technically supposed to be locked to them, he wanted to do a little forbidden mapping.

A sudden, hollow thumping caught his attention, causing the eldrich being to furrow his brow in confusion and look around. He found the source of the sound to be Tommy, pounding away at the forcefield that kept him and the rest of the science team from accessing this area. 

He was looking right at Benry, still knocking on the field. Benry tilted his head, watching him as the lanky man gestured over his shoulder with his thumb and said something he couldn't make out. He must have wanted him to come back.

Benry sighed, turning on his heel and heading back towards the much taller man. If he didn't, Tommy would either find a way to follow him or give him a disappointed look when he returned- he really didn't wanna deal with that.

"Benry, we're having a team meeting," Tommy said as Benry stepped through the forcefield. "You- you should join us."

"Why? Benny's not a science nerd. Not- uh, not Billy Nye. What's up?" he asked, even though he was fairly sure he already knew the answer. 

"We...we were wanting to talk about yesterday. A-About Mr. Fre- uh, M-Mr. Newman," Tommy said as they walked, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously. 

Yep- He called it.

Benry sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets as he followed Tommy. "And you wanna have this talk before Feetman logs on?" he asked, dropping his gaze to the ground as they made their way back towards the spawn area. "I wanna punch him in his teeth for lying," he muttered, though that wasn't _entirely_ true.

In truth, Benry wasn't sure what he was feeling. He'd never been good with putting his thoughts into words, much less his emotions- better to have sweet voice talk for you than try and figure out the words for yourself.

A mixture of ivy, ruby, and indigo sweet voice bubbled escaped his lips, melding and floating up into the air in a disgusting, brown mess as he thought about this. He glanced at it in disgust, shaking his head at the flurry of thoughts mixing in his head. He was angry and concerned, he felt betrayed and scared for Gordon- sure, he'd never had a dad, but if he was family to Gordon he was sure it must hurt to maybe lose him.

Benry hugged his arms as they came closer to the group, which had gathered in the same place they'd been yesterday before the whole panel mess, sitting down slowly beside Tommy in the circle they always managed to form.

There was a noticeable empty space in their shape, but no one mentioned it.

The air was thick with tension, as if no one wanted to poke the bear that they all knew would wake up eventually. Benry sighed, ducking his head slightly and staring at the ground. A pow-wow without Gordon felt... _wrong_.

"So are we going to talk or what? I hate this endless silence," Bubby said, breaking the tense air that permeated the group. "Harold, why did you even _want_ this meeting? Are we here to trash talk Gordon or what?" he asked, glancing towards Coomer in question.

"I- no, that's not what...I don't think that's the best course of action," Coomer replied before glancing around the circle. "Look," he started, straightening his back slightly. "I- I know that yesterday was...interesting..." his grip tightened ever so slightly on his knees. "But Gordon's hurting right now. I don't think that piling on him like we usually do is going to be... acceptable... today."

"With all due respect, Dr. Coomer," Darnold started, wringing his hands as he spoke. "Dr. Freeman lied to us. He- He's not even Dr. _Freeman_. We- We don't even know if he's a _doctor!"_ he said, his voice pitching upward as he ended his sentence, as if suddenly coming to that last realization himself. 

"I...I know that Dr. Darnold," Coomer replied, fiddling with his thumb for a moment. "But... I think that...that despite this fact, we should cut Gordon some slack. I- I mean, we can't really have expected him to actually have the same name as he did in the game, can we?" he asked, looking around.

"At the end of the day, he's still human...can we really fault him for that? He never asked to be saddled with us."

"You say that like we're a burden or something," Bubby replied with a roll of his eyes.

Dr. Coomer sighed, dropping his eyes. "Gordon said something yesterday that...that hurt me, true. He said that I was no one...but I can choose to take something like that to heart or I can choose to forgive and move on, with the knowledge of the kind of situation he is in." Coomer lifted his eyes once more, looking around the group again.

"He's forgiven us for the things we've done, hasn't he?" he asked, glancing towards Bubby and Benry in particular. 

"For whatever reason, Gordon doesn't want to tell his roommate about us. What he said wasn't personal, and I can't take it as such- just like with his name. We never actually asked him if that was his real name, after all. We assumed."

Tommy furrowed his brow worriedly. "W-what if his name isn't actually Gordon? What- what if he doesn't _actually_ like us?" he asked, rubbing his thumb into his palm vigorously. 

Coomer sighed, bringing a hand up to rub the back of his neck. "I don't know the answer to that, Tommy...but I can say this with utmost certainty. If nothing else, Gordon would never lie to us about whether or not he likes us." the old man replied, offering Tommy a reassuring grin.

Benry nodded slowly. Coomer was right- Gordon had always been upfront with them about whether or not he liked them. He knew Gordon didn't really hate him specifically- their relationship was complicated. 

He knew he didn't hate Gordon. He probably _couldn't_ hate Gordon, now that he thought about it.

That stupid smile of his, the stupid curly locks that fell into his face whenever he laughed particularly hard. That stupid anger that devolved into a resigned grin and a shake of the head whenever he dealt with them. His stupid voice that somehow managed to make Benry fumble over his words even more than usual, that stupid determination to keep the group together, keep them safe, to spend time with them, even after everything they'd done to him...

He felt his heart skip a beat just thinking about the man. 

He was such a simp.

"I don't think-" Bubby paused, his brow furrowing when a glowing white panel that usually indicated Gordon's computer turning on appeared out of thin air near the spawn house. "Looks like the moron's back," he said, clambering to his feet along with the others.

"Are we talking to him about this, Harold?" he asked, glancing towards the shorter scientist. 

"I think that'd be best, Professor- best to air everything out now, rather than to let it build up and explode later on down the road," Coomer replied.

"Doctor."

"Professor."

_"Doctor."_

_"Professor!"_

Benry furrowed his brow at the light, ignoring the bickering old men and narrowing his eyes on the bright white form that appeared out of nowhere. He had a bad feeling building in his gut, one that had him baring his teeth on instinct as he felt the code in the air shift and re-align ass the player loaded in.

The glowing white form filled out slowly as the game loaded around the player- but something was off.

He tensed, glancing at Tommy, who had also begun to furrow his brow before looking back towards the player. Tommy was drawing his gun slowly as Benry readied himself for a fight.

"That's not Gordon..." he muttered as the newcomer blinked into existence.

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a shorter chapter but that cliff hanger was too good for me to not end the whole thing there. 
> 
> I'm a slut for the dramatics, what can I say?
> 
> Anywho, if you liked it or hated it or anything in between, please leave me a comment to read! It''s really the only feedback I actually care about when it comes to my fics since it gives me more than just numbers to look at. :)


	11. ...A Message From Our Sponsors!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uh-oh....somebody's done a bad...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra-long chapter to make up for the last one's cliff-hanger~ enjoy!

\- - -

**"That's not Gordon..." he muttered as the newcomer blinked into existence.**

\- - -

Barney woke up to Wyatt banging on his door, yanking him unceremoniously from his sleep as he jolted up in bed. "Ngh- Wha? Huh?" he questioned as he glanced around tiredly, rubbing the sleep from one of his eyes as his roommate opened the door.

"Hey- sorry to wake you up...I just thought I'd tell you that I'm about to head out," Wyatt said, a backpack slung over his shoulder as he stood in the doorway. Barney blinked, stifling a yawn as he clambered out of bed. Wyatt had only gotten the call from his mom yesterday, and he was already flying out today?

Sure, it made sense why he'd want to get back to Michigan as fast as possible, but booking a flight that fast must have been hella expensive. 

"Ok, bro- have a good flight and all that," he said, coming closer to the man and wrapping him up in a hug. Wyatt wheezed, chuckling as he struggled to get an arm out to pat Barney on the back.

"I'll try," Wyatt replied with a grin when barney pulled back. "Hey, uh, actually...can I ask a favor of you?" he asked, rubbing the back of his neck. "Feels like that's all I've done lately, but..." Barney nodded. Wyatt could ask him for just about anything. "Could you..." His roommate chewed on the side of his cheek for a moment- this must have been something he'd thought about for a while.

"Could you um, go into my room periodically, and make sure my computer doesn't shut down? It's fine if it goes to sleep, but...I uh, I'd rather not have it shut down," he said, confusing the Hell out of Barney.

"Uh, sure, bro," he replied, tilting his head slightly as Wyatt nodded. "Can I ask why?"

"Um...I...I'll explain when I get back, okay?" he said, his resolution steeling as he spoke. He must have thought long and hard about that, too. Barney mentally shrugged- he could wait, he supposed. And if he got a chance to maybe sneak another peek at that weird code on his bro's PC? 

Well, who could fault him for that?

"It should be fine for now, but it likes to try to shut down if the computer stays inactive for 12 hours. You shouldn't have to check up on it often, but..." he trailed off before shaking his head. "No, I should go, my flight leaves in an hour."

"Go, bro. I got this. Your computer won't shut down while I'm here," Barney said, shoving Wyatt playfully towards the door, where a bright orange suitcase was waiting. "Go. Go see your pops and say hi to Joshie for me," he said, crossing his arms over his chest as Wyatt grabbed the handle of his suitcase.

"Joshua doesn't even know who you are, dude."

"Wow, you scared your baby brother's gonna like me more than you if he learns about me?"

Wyatt snorted. " _As if._ I'm his favorite, easy."

"You're gonna miss your plane- and it looks like your uber's here," Barney said, gesturing with his head towards the waiting silver car outside. "Go- everything'll be fine, bro."

"Alright, alright," Wyatt replied, shaking his head at the man. "Thanks, Barney," he added before walking out the front door. Barney nodded once and shut it behind him, glancing towards the stairs as his mind rushed with thoughts. _He could take another look at those NPCs._ He wouldn't mess with them, of course, he'd never go against his bro's wishes, but he _could_ take another look.

Nothing wrong with that.

Barney stood on his toes to look out the window set into the front door, watching as Wyatt climbed into the back and the silver car drove off. He waited a couple of moments with bated breath, like a child watching his mother leave for the grocery store with the knowledge he could watch scary movies as soon as she was out of sight. 

When he was sure he was gone, he booked it up the stairs and into Wyatt's room.

A part of him thought that this might be crossing some kind of line...I mean, a man's computer is like an extension of himself in a way... but Wyatt _had_ given him permission to look. He opened the door to Wyatt's room and glanced towards the computer, walking over to the desk and wiggling the mouse to make the screen come to life.

Slime Rancher was still minimized at the bottom of the screen, but he ignored that for now, choosing instead to pull up the game's code. He took a seat in Wyatt's chair and started looking for the weird NPCs in the place that they'd been in before...only to find them gone.

Barney furrowed his brow in confusion- had Wyatt moved them? No, no he'd specifically come to Barney any time he'd needed help with these guys...but that didn't explain why they were suddenly gone. They kind of needed to be in the NPC file in order to function so...what happened?

"This shit is so screwy," he muttered to himself, closing the file and looking around some of the others. Textures- no. Maps- no. Dialog- no. With each attempt to find that weird file full of NPCs, Barney came up empty-handed. They didn't seem to be anywhere inside of the game for some reason. Maybe Wyatt had looked up some kind of tutorial on Youtube and removed them himself?

If that was the case, where had he put them?

Though he was curious, he wasn't about to go snooping in files that didn't have to do with the game (no matter how much he wanted to) and leaned back in the chair with a frustrated sigh. He chewed on the corner of his lip in thought as he exited the window, trying to come up with some kind of explanation as to why the NPCs might be removed. 

Barney glanced down at the minimized window, clicking on it and leaning forward with a furrowed brow when he saw what looked like familiar blurry figures in the background of the menu. So the NPC's _were_ still in the game! But how? They couldn't have been working if they weren't in the correct folder...

He swallowed thickly, glancing towards the VR headset sitting atop the desk. While Wyatt loved to play any game he had in a VR port, Barney himself didn't have much of a stomach for it. The way Wyatt's games were set up though, kind of required it to be used.

Was he really thinking about doing this? All he'd wanted to do was look at the code again, then he'd leave...but he couldn't _find_ the code to look at. 

Maybe seeing the NPC's in action could be the next best thing...?

Barney grabbed hold of the headset, standing up and moving the chair out of the way as he pulled it on. He'd worn a couple of headsets in his time- Wyatt's was cool in that you could just use your hands if you didn't feel like using controllers. Lucky for him, since he didn't really know where they were.

He pressed the play button on the screen, letting out a breath as a loading screen popped up. "Wyatt won't mind... it's just slime rancher, not like I'm gonna ruin his progress or anything," he said to himself, watching as the bright pink bar finally filled up. 

The world around him exploded into colors, causing him to look around in awe- only to pause at the sight of five figures just...staring at him. Well, three of them were staring- one had a pistol trained on him (wait, Slime Rancher didn't have any actual weapons-) and the other, the one in armor, was currently baring very sharp-looking teeth at him. 

The weirdest thing of all, though, was he could vaguely tell that they were supposed to be Black Mesa NPCs. The Black Mesa logo on the guard's uniform and the lab coats were a dead giveaway, but the weird part wasn't that they were looking at him like they actually saw him- _t_ _hough admittedly, that was kind of freaking him out-_ it was that they looked like _real people._

They weren't clunky, 90's era 3d models- they looked like actual, real-life people. They looked like they belonged in Death Stranding or DBH, not _Half-Life._

Barney blinked, staring at them in awe as the guard stepped closer. His teeth were still bared, eyes narrowed on Barney as dark red wowozela bubbled drifted up from his mouth. Wait, that was a g-mod thing, what the Hell-

_"Get out,"_ he growled, causing Barney to flinch and rear his head back in surprise. It- it _spoke_ to him. The voice was weird, like someone talking through a bad mic, but still audible. It definitely _wasn't_ the guard voice, he knew that much.

"Whoa..." he replied, tilting his head and staring wide-eyed at the model. "That's like, actually incredible," he said, looking the guard up and down. He took a step forward to get a better look- it was just an NPC reciting dialog, no big deal- only to have a gun fired in his direction, the bullet whizzing past his ear and digging itself into the metal spawn house behind him.

Barney glanced back at it, blinking at the sight of an actual bullet in _Slime Rancher_ of all things. When he looked back, the NPC that had fired it, a tall man in- _was that a helicopter hat?_ -had come closer and was now standing beside the guard, his gun still trained on Barney as another man followed him up.

He wasn't even aware that the scientist models could _hold_ guns, much less fire them.

"H-he said get- get out," the model said, his voice shaking as he spoke. This caused Barney to furrow his brow slightly- maybe they had dialog trees and could bounce off what one another said? Though, the shaking of the voice was something he hadn't expected to hear. 

"Are you deaf or something?!" Another scientist- wait, no, that was Dr. Kleiner's model- Dr. Kleiner came forward angrily, eyes narrowed behind thick glasses as he sneered at Barney.

"Big dumb. Dumb idiot thinks he can- can come in here," the guard said, eyes still narrowed on Barney. "You're not Feetman- so leave," he spat, causing Barney's confusion to grow. This dialog was weird...and kinda specific. Who was Feetman? Unfortunate last name, by the sound of it.

"Weird," Barney commented, causing Kleiner's model to get angrier.

"Are you _trying_ to make us angry or are you just that stupid?" he asked, a small flame sparking on his shoulder. He didn't seem to notice it, though the shorter scientist that had followed him quickly patted it out.

Barney looked for some kind of button or indicator in order to respond to the NPC's, though when he didn't find one, he simply furrowed his brow further. The shorter scientist tilted his head at him. "You... you must be Gordon's roommate," he said, causing Barney to glance towards him with wide eyes. He looked the man up and done as he stepped out in front of the others, and Barney could actually _see_ the tension he held in his shoulders.

"You'll have to forgive us- the Science Team isn't the best when it comes to first impressions..." he continued, swallowing thickly and taking another step forward, despite the obvious discomfort of the other NPCs.

Wait- discomfort?

Yeah, that's definitely what it was- they were reacting to him, acting as if they could actually see what the scientist model was doing and had their own feelings on the matter. The guard looked like he wanted to step in, but stayed where he was- as did Dr. Kleiner. The taller man still looked anxious, and the last man was attempting to hide behind the tall man and simultaneously staring right at him.

He was missing something- something _big_.

The old man in front of him held his calloused hand- _wait, calloused? Why was it calloused? Why could he see that much detail in the model's hand?_ -out in greeting, giving him an uneasy smile. 

"Barney, was it?" he asked slowly. "I'm Dr. Harold, P. Coomer."

Barney could feel his brain immediately shut down.

\- - -

The group watched as the bulky man physically blue screen, his face freezing before he toppled over backward and onto the ground. Coomer blinked, retracting his hand worriedly. "Oh no..." he muttered, getting a cackle out of Bubby.

"Well, that's one way to get him to leave!" he laughed as the others came closer, gathering around the now unconscious man. Tommy leaned forward a tad to check his head, deeming whatever he saw satisfactory as he leaned back and glanced around. 

"W-What do we do now?" he asked worriedly.

"I didn't mean to frighten him," Dr. Coomer said, rubbing the back of his neck guiltily. "Guess I should have known that Gordon's reaction to us was out of the ordinary."

"Well, Gordon _did_ have over a week to get used to us and everything that we entail," Bubby said, nudging the man on the ground with the toe of his shiny black loafer. "I say we kill him," he continued, glancing around with a smirk.

"He'll just respawn," Benry replied, shoving his hands into his pockets. 

"W-what about Gordon? How did this guy get in here? Wouldn't Gordon have kept- have stopped him?" Tommy asked, wringing his wrists as he chewed on his bottom lip. "He didn't want this- this Barney guy to even known we were AI's."

"I'm pretty sure Dr. Freeman left to go see his family, Tommy," Darnold said, eyes glued to Barney. "This guy must have snuck into his room and got on his computer."

"Lil bitch man snoopin' through another man's computer? That's- uh, fuckin' unpog, bro," Benry said before kicking the man in the ribs. He groaned but didn't make any other movements to show that he was awake. 

"Benry! Don't kick him," Tommy said, hands balling into uneasy fists.

"Why? Feetman doesn't want him in here, _we_ don't want him in here, maybe if he bully him he'll just leave," he replied, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Yes, because that worked _so well_ with Gordon," Bubby said with an unimpressed look.

"See, we bullied Feetman cause we _like_ him, though," Benry snarked back.

"Uh, guys-"

"Like him? _we cut his fucking arm off_ , you idiot. It's a wonder he can even stand us!"

"We didn't _know_ the boot boys were gonna do that. It was a not cool, we all agreed on that."

"Guys-"

"You tried to _kill_ him! To kill _all of us!_ You can't just stand there and say that you like him after trying to do that!"

"Bro, you just don't understand the friendship me and Feetman have-"

"GUYS!"

The pair glanced towards Tommy when he shouted- it wasn't something Tommy usually did, so it threw them for a loop. Tommy was staring at the man on the ground again, his eyes wide and body tense as he aimed his gun towards him once more.

Benry looked down, only to find Gordon's roommate doing his best impression of a starfish and pressing his body against the ground as he stared up at the AI's with wide eyes. Benry's shoulders slumped and he sighed. _Great_. They'd wasted their time arguing. Now what were they gonna do?

"Are you...alright?" Dr. Coomer asked, his voice unsteady as the man's gaze flicked between the AI's. There was a mixture of confusion, fascination, and fear there- that last one, Benry might be able to work with. The man swallowed thickly, seemingly trying to find his words.

"Do you have brain damage or something? You were speaking fine a few minutes ago," Bubby said, his tone accusatory- he got like that when he was afraid sometimes. 

"You..." Barney breathed, drawing in a shaky breath as he sat up. The AI's took a step back, giving him some room _(or trying to put some distance between them- Benry wasn't really sure)_ as the man brought a hand up to his head. "You said my name...you _know_ my name..."

"You're...what _are_ you?" he asked, his words slow as he must have been thinking. Benry was fairly sure the guy already had an idea as to what they were, but still needed some kind of confirmation.

**"Your worst nightmare,"** Benry growled, grinning a predatory smile full of razor-sharp teeth that dripped with red sweet voice as he spoke. The man blinked at him and Dr. Coomer smacked the back of his helmet lightly. 

"I- what?" Barney asked, blinking at Benry before glancing towards the others. "You're..." he dropped his gaze, eyes shifting from side to side and wetting his lips before continuing. "You're AI, aren't you. Fully-" he swallowed. "Fully realized, _functioning AI_ ," the wonder in his eyes grew, replacing any semblance of fear he may have felt. 

Benry rolled his eyes, wiping the dripping sweet voice from his mouth.

"Give the big dumb a prize..." Bubby said with a roll of his eyes. "Now get out."

Barney blinked, sputtering for a moment. "I- I- this is insane, bro- I- fully realized AI shouldn't- this- this is amazing, this kind of thing could change technology as we know it," he said, a grin spreading across his face that made the AI's surrounding him nervous. 

"No wonder your code is so fucked up, bro! It's- It's _living_ , it's fuckin- you're fuckin-" he let out an excited laugh, and Benry would rather gouge out his own eyes before admitting that his excitement was sort of contagious. 

The mixture of dread, anxiety, and giddiness was not a good combination in his stomach.

"People need to know about this- about you guys! This- Oh my God, why-" he was stammering now, breaking off his sentences as he spoke and very obviously saying the first thing that came to his head, and then saying the next thought after that, even if it interrupted the first thought. 

Benry glanced towards Dr. Coomer uneasily. That knot in his gut was still there. Maybe this was why Gordon hadn't wanted to tell Barney about them.

_Something didn't feel right._

"Why would he wanna keep something like this to himself? This is the discovery of the century!" Barney said excitedly, clambering to his feet and running a hand through his hair disbelievingly. "This- oh my God, we're gonna be rich-" his grin was still growing, even as he brought his hands to his mouth to laugh into them. The other AI's started nervously glancing towards Coomer and Benry now, too. 

This was _exactly_ the reason why Gordon didn't want Barney to know about them.

"I gotta- I gotta call the newspaper, the- the fuckin news- this is insane, bro- fully functioning- _holy shit_ , _"_ Barney was looking at them like they were long-lost missing bones in a dinosaur skeleton and he was an aging archeologist that had bet his entire career on them being found... it was unnerving- 

No... it was _de-humanizing._

He saw them as _objects_... as nothing more than advanced, fancy lines of code. It made the knot in Benry's stomach twist angrily. 

"Wyatt, you _sneaky son of a bitch-_ I gotta call Alyx," he muttered, reaching up to pull off what Beenry assumed was his headset, causing him to blink out of existence. The air was tense, the AI's silent as they stared at where Barney had just been standing.

"...Who's Wyatt?"

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >:( Barney, you don't just use another man's computer without permission!
> 
> Anywho- gimme some comments if you enjoyed this chapter! It's a great motivator.


	12. When The Real World Comes Knockin'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have a bad habit of ending my chapters on cliff-hangers and I am sorry for that lol
> 
> regardless, enjoy. :3

\- - -

**"...Who's Wyatt?"**

\- - -

The spawn area was silent for about three seconds before panic rippled throughout the group.

"What- what is he gonna do to us? What's gonna happen?!" Darnold asked worriedly, glancing around the group as he gripped his hair tightly. 

"Why would he want to alert the media? He acted as if he'd never seen AI before," Bubby said, brows pinched together in thought. 

Benry decided to stay quiet on the fact that technically, this was probably true. Their game being enveloped with as advanced of an AI as they all were was _certainly_ not on purpose- Gordon made that fact pretty clear when he just stood there and marveled at them sometimes. 

Speaking of Gordon...

Benry sighed. No wonder he'd been hesitant on telling his roommate about them... he'd been nice about it, too, telling the group that he'd think on it- and Benry had decided to guilt-trip him about it. The situation was bad- probably _really_ bad- and Gordon had just been trying to protect them from it.

He sighed. 

A sudden chill to the air caused him to glance up from where he was moping, finding G-Man walking towards them stiffly, briefcase in hand as he straightened his tie. "Dad!" Tommy said happily, grinning at the sight of the man as he came closer to the group. 

He glanced around, meeting Benry's gaze before looking towards the others. "I...saw what happened," he said slowly. Benry stood up and joined the group, shoving his hands in his pockets as he stood between Bubby and Tommy.

"What're we supposed to do now, big bad? We can't just wait for Feetman to come back."

G-Man glanced towards him. "I've already hidden your.... _codes_ from prying eyes. He won't be able to...reach it without some _extreme_ effort. On that front...we're safe," he replied, his words just as janky and inhuman as ever. Benry would have laughed had the situation not been so serious.

"So what, we just stay here like sitting ducks?" Bubby asked.

"We're trying not to panic, Mr. Coolatta, but you can understand the confusion and stress we're under, right?" Dr. Coomer tried. 

"I...understand," G-Man replied, glancing towards Coomer. "I believe the best course of action...would be to alert Dr. Freeman of this... _predicament_ ," he said, casting an icy blue eye over the group once more. "As he is the only one of us....that has any actual... _authority_ in that world."

"And how're we supposed to get a hold of him exactly?" Bubby asked, his frustration obviously growing.

"Do you have some kind of plan, dad?" Tommy asked.

The G-Man's gaze softened slightly when it fell upon his son, nodding once in his direction. "I _do_...actually," he said, presenting his briefcase and confusing the group even further. "The internet is a very...informative...place. Much more than simply...Wikipedia articles."

"I...don't follow," Coomer replied.

But Benry did. He had a feeling he knew exactly where G-Man was going with this. He watched as the enigmatic man set the briefcase down on thin air as if it were as sturdy as a wooden desk before unclasping the lock and opening it slowly. He tried to peer over the edge, but couldn't really see anything from where he was.

"Is that-"

"What are we supposed to do with _that?"_

G-Man gave them the closest thing Benry had probably ever seen the man get to a smile- it looked more like a grimace. "We're going to....alert Dr. Freeman of what's...happening here," he said, turning on the cellphone in his hands.

"By any means...possible," G-Man said, tapping something into the keyboard.

\- - -

Wyatt heaved his backpack over his shoulder as he left the terminal, looking for baggage claim with a tired, confused look. The flight had been long and he'd been stuck next to a man that wouldn't give him two minutes of silence, even when he tried to block his ramblings out with his headphones.

Noise-canceling _my ass_.

He was exhausted already, and the sun hadn't even gone down yet.

Wyatt walked with the flow of the other passengers, who likely had more of an idea as to what they were doing than him, until he managed to find the luggage claim. He lit up at the sight of a bright orange suitcase with a couple of decals slapped onto it, maneuvering his way through the crowd to reach it. 

He pulled it off the conveyer belt and extended the handle with a snap, walking away from that area and towards the exit. His mom was supposed to pick him up, but she tended to be late, so he had no idea how long he'd actually be waiting.

The young man walked through a couple of sets of doors, past security, and finally through the door court before reaching the exit. He kept an eye out for the familiar blue-tinge of his mother's minivan and lit up when he saw it. He'd never memorized her license place or anything, but he recognized that particular, scooter-shaped dent in the bumper anywhere.

He made his way towards it, knocking on the window and spooking his mother, who was sitting in the driver's seat on her phone. She smiled softly at the sight of him and unlocked the doors, the back of which Wyatt slid open and tossed his luggage and backpack into before climbing into the front himself. 

"Hey mom," he said with a grin, getting a tired, pained smile from her. He could tell she was hurting- he was too. "Where's Joshie?" he asked as he buckled up and his mother pulled out into the driving lane.

"He's with Adrian- they're at the hospital with your father," she replied, pulling into traffic as Wyatt settled into his seat. He glanced out the window, letting out a shaky breath as he stared at the sky. He wasn't ready to see his dad hooked up to tubes and machines; sure, they'd had a bit of a falling out before he'd left home, but he was still his dad. 

"Is he okay?"

"Joshua or your father?"

"Both, I guess."

"Joshua's good- he's taken an interest in sports recently. He still loves cowboys, still loves you."

"And dad?"

"He misses you, even if he doesn't say it out loud. Sometimes he'll go into your old room and just set on the edge of the bed, running his fingers over the sheets."

Wyatt dropped his gaze. 

"We're almost there," his mother said, filling the silence as they turned into a large parking lot in front of an imposing hospital. Wyatt blinked up at it, chewing on his lip as they parked ad clambered out of the car. "He's probably going to be tired, but don't let that stop you from talking to him," she said as they walked through the main doors.

He followed the woman to the elevators, stepping inside and waiting as she pressed the 4th-floor button and the silver doors closed. Wyatt rubbed the scar that encircled his wrist, a habit he'd picked up ever since getting it, as they got closer and closer to his father's hospital room. 

When they came upon the room, the door was open, and there was high-pitched laughter coming from inside. Wyatt couldn't help but smile at the sound of it- he'd missed his baby brother. He took the lead, causing his mother to grin, and popped his head into the room.

"Is that a sheriff I hear?" he asked, thankful that there were no other patients in the room as Joshua gasped dramatically and scrambled down from his father's hospital bed to come barrel head-first into Wyatt. The little boy hugged him tightly, wrapping his arms around his neck as he tried to strangle him.

"I missed you, Wyatt," the 8-year-old said, sniffling as he pulled back. "Are you staying?" he asked with wide eyes, getting a chuckle from the streamer. 

"For a little while, yes," he said as Joshua grabbed his hand and tugged him further into the room. Wyatt glanced at the man in the chair beside his father's chair- a salt-and-pepper haired man with a buzz cut and a gnarly scar that hooked the right side of his jaw and went up to his ear. He glanced up from the book he had in his hands and gave Wyatt a tired smile in greeting.

Adrian Shepard was one of his father's oldest friends- something in the back of his mind that sounded like a particularly grumpy old man yelled that he was a bootlicker since he'd served for like, 20 years in the military, but he shoved that thought away. Adrian was a good man- and a close friend of the family. 

"Dad, look! It's Wyatt!" Joshua said excitedly, bringing Wyatt closer to the bed. His father opened his eyes and looked the younger man in the eyes, a soft smile making its way onto his wrinkled face. 

"Hey, kiddo," he said softly, causing Wyatt's throat to close up. He'd been right in his assumption- the man was hooked up to all kinds of tubes and wires, making him look like some kind of genetic experiment. 

"Hey dad," he said as Adrian stood, scooping Joshua up off the ground and tossing him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

"We'll give you two a minute," he grunted, leaving the room and allowing his mother to close the door, giving Wyatt and his father some privacy.

Wyatt took this chance to sit down in the chair Adrian had been in, pulling it closer to the bed. His father shifted, turning his head to look towards him. "So what're you doin' nowadays? Got a girlfriend yet?" he asked, as if they were having lunch and _not_ in a depressing hospital room. 

He replied with a watery chuckle, shaking his head at the old man. "No dad, no girlfriend," he said, leaving out the fact that he'd prefer a boyfriend anyways. His dad already knew that fact. "And uh...i'm a streamer," he said, knowing that his dad likely wouldn't know what that meant. 

"So you work with rivers?" his dad asked, and by the tone of his voice, Wyatt knew he was pulling his leg. "How's that Barnabus friend of yours? He still doin' computers?"

" _Barney_. And yeah- he's about to graduate, actually."

"You got any other friends on that side of the world?" his dad asked, knowing full well that he was only a couple of states over. 

Wyatt thought about it for a moment. Sure, he had Barney, and by extension, he sort of had Alyx, but other than that... A soft smile graced his lips when he thought about another group- sure, they didn't have physical bodies, but he knew they were still his friends. 

"Yeah... uh, I do. One of them is a security guard for a research place," he said, grinning at his own inside joke. "One's a boxer," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Another's into pyrotechnics..." His father watched him. "One's a mixologist, and uh, the last one's...a dog trainer," he said, still grinning at his own descriptions.

"Do these people have names or do you all just refer to each other by your jobs?" his father asked, chuckling slightly. 

"Oh- uh, heh. Right. Their- their names are Bubby, D- Harold, Tommy, Darnold and Benry."

"Half of those sound made up, son."

He wouldn't be surprised if they were.

He simply shrugged in response, grinning as he father launched into more questions about his life and what he had going on.

After a while, he could tell the man was falling asleep. He kept trailing off and going off on tangents, his eyelids fluttering closed before snapping back open. "Why don't you sleep? I'll go catch up with the others," he said, standing up and grabbing his father's hand. The old man squeezed it gently, making Wyatt's heart twist in his chest.

He left the room and leaned against the door after closing it, letting out a shaky sigh. 

"I take it that went well, then?" Adrian asked, bulky arms crossed over his chest with a smirk as he looked at Wyatt.

"About as well as it could go," he replied, giving the older man a grin.

"Your mom's down the hall. Josh wanted to look out the windows."

"Got it. Thanks, Adrian," he said, the man nodding to him before opening the hospital room and entering it quietly. Wyatt made his way towards where his mom and little brother were and pulled his phone out of his pocket, glancing down at it and mentally face-palming when he realized he'd never taken it off of airplane mode. 

"Smooth brain moments..." he muttered to himself, turning the mode off and pocketing the device. He got another few steps in before it buzzed against his thigh. He pulled it back out and furrowed his brow at the sight of an email alert from a sender he didn't recognize. He unlocked his phone and opened the email, furrowing his brow when he found no sign of a virus or shady link.

He glanced at the sender, getting a weird itch in the back of his mind that told him he _should_ recognize the name- you'd think that a name like 'Wakeupandsmelltheashes@gmail.com' wouldn't be easily forgotten.

Wyatt pushed the thought from his mind, glancing down to the actual message itself. His heart sank at the words, eyes widening at the sight. 

**Mr. Newman,**

**I am reaching out to you because we require your assistance.**

**Your roommate has discovered the AI's.**

**They- _We_ are in danger. I urge you to return home and assist us in this manner.**

_**It may be life or death.** _

**\- The G-Man.**

Wyatt swallowed thickly at the words on the screen, a thousand thoughts rushing through his head. How had G-Man gotten his email? How had he managed to sen him a message? Why had Barney gone through his computer!? He blinked, his grip tightening on his phone. 

He couldn't leave- he'd literally _just_ got there. He'd barely spent more than half an hour with his dad, and now- now this. Why couldn't the universe give him a break? He turned off his phone and ran a shaky, unsteady hand through his hair, trying to think about what he should do.

He was torn between two factions- his mother, father and Josh...and the Science Team.

Some sadistic deity somewhere was testing his patience, and he was _not_ a fan. How the hell was he supposed to choose between two groups he considered family?

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hnnngghhhh.... okay so that whole interaction between Wyatt and Joshua is actually based on how my own little brother acts whenever I come home from college on holidays and stuff. Always asks if I'm there to stay, always gets upset when I say I can't. 
> 
> Dammit, now I miss my own lil brother.
> 
> Also- yeah I kinda totally went off on this whole little tangent with Wyatt here...uh...i'm gonna try to course correct this to focus more on the games again...instead of this weird plotline I got goin' on...
> 
> ...unless yall are into this? I have no idea, please please PLEASE give me some feedback. I like, actually really need it for this.


	13. Come to Your Own Conclusions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wyatt comes to a decision...and so does Barney.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> enjoy this mess

\- - -

**Some sadistic deity somewhere was testing his patience, and he was _not_ a fan. How the hell was he supposed to choose between two groups he considered family?**

\- - -

Wyatt walked down the steps of the hospital numbly, his feet heavy as he held one hand to his face in thought. His phone felt heavy in his hoodie pocket, reminding him of the choice that needed to be made. He let out a shaky breath, wandering aimlessly out onto the green lawn in front of the hospital.

The Science Team couldn't have had worse timing...and Barney...he'd _trusted_ him, and Barney had _betrayed_ that trust. Wyatt's hand tightened around the phone in his pocket, anger flaring as he thought about the man.

"Should've known he couldn't resist..." he muttered, shaking his head and kicking a discarded soda can in frustration. 

He felt something slam into the backs of his legs, nearly knocking him over, and glanced down to find his little brother hugging his legs, a wide smile on his face. Wyatt glanced back towards the hospital entrance, only to find his mother trailing behind him.

"What're you guys doing?" he asked, having the boy up and setting him on his hip. Josh was getting too big for this... soon enough Wyatt wouldn't be able to pick him up period.

"You left really suddenly. Josh asked to follow you, so..." his mom gestured towards the boy with a grin and a shake of her head. "What's wrong, hon?" she asked, guiding him towards a bench.

They took a seat, Joshua relaxing against his elder brother as he leaned back against the bench. "I..." he started, only to cut himself off. How could he possibly explain something like this?

_'Hey, mom, the Artificial Intelligences in my computer the shouldn't actually exist are in danger of being exposed to the world and probably torn apart by my roommate, so now I have to choose between some of my closest friends and my family! By the way, I swear I'm not crazy!"_

He sighed at the thought. "Just...friend troubles," he muttered, dropping his gaze. His mother furrowed her brow, concern evident in her eyes. 

"There's something else, isn't there?"

"I don't know how to explain it, mom."

She set a hand on his thigh, squeezing it reassuringly. "Talk to me. I'll try to understand." There was no way that she would- Wyatt barely understood it himself. 

"I just... I have some friends back home," he said, swallowing thickly. "And they messaged me...and said that they really needed me." he met her eyes. "Said it could be life or death."

His mother dropped her own gaze in thought, bringing a hand up to her face to bite down on her knuckle. Wyatt glanced away from her, only to find Joshua inches from his face and staring. "Whoa, buddy- what's up?" he asked, tilting his head slightly. 

Joshua kept staring for a moment, his gaze flicking between Wyatt's eyes before he finally came to some sort of conclusion. "You should go see your friends," he said before grinning. "You can be like a superhero and swoop in to save the day."

Wyatt blinked, glancing towards his mother. Seems like Joshua must have taken the words right out of her mouth if her soft smile was anything to go by. "Friends are important," Joshua continued, fumbling with the stuffed horse he'd been carrying around- Mr. ClipClop must have been in his mother's purse earlier. 

"You gotta make them happy if they're sad. If you don't, then you're not a good friend."

His mother nodded slowly. "He's right, Wyatt. If...if this really is something that...serious, I think you should go home," she said, drawing her hand back from his leg. "Your dad's strong. I have faith that he can make it through this. He's been through worse."

The young man swallowed thickly, staring at his mother openly. She was- she was okay with this. She trusted him to make the right decision, whatever that may be, and offered no judgment. He nodded slowly, numbly, as Joshua shifted on his lap. 

Wyatt pulled out his phone, glancing down at the message he still had yet to reply to. 

With shaking fingers, he tapped a response into the email. 

**I'm on my way.**

**Text me next time though, G-Man.**

**\- W.**

He pressed send with a swipe of the thumb, sending it to whatever device the AI's had managed to jerry-rig into sending messages out and let out a shaky breath. "I- I'll be back, you know that right?" he said, looking back towards his mother. 

"After I deal with this I'll dip into my savings and I'll come back-"

"Wyatt," she said, cutting him off with a single word.

"It's okay," she grinned as Joshua clambered up from his lap and moved to sit on hers. "You aren't expected to do anything, honey. I know that your father enjoyed the time he spent with you today... and he'll be okay," she said, her voice reassuring.

"O-okay..." he breathed, his voice shaky as thoughts rushed through his mind. He hoped she was right.

"You want me to drive you to the airport?"

"Can't really walk, can I?"

"Okay, smart-aleck."

\- - -

Barney felt a rush of adrenaline as the pulled off the headset, setting it down on the desk with a giddy laugh and taking off out of Wyatt's room and thundering downstairs. He couldn't believe this- real, actual, fully-sentient AI! And Wyatt had been keeping it a _secret_ from him!

Admittedly, that part stung- Wyatt _knew_ he was a geek when it came to computers and robots and AI, so why wouldn't he tell him about the amazing ones hiding out in his PC?

Wait, had Wyatt _made_ them? 

No, no- Wyatt didn't have any coding experience, much less the time or resources necessary to create fully functioning AI. That brought up the question though...where did they come from then?

Hm... maybe he should figure that out before alerting the media. He didn't really want to out something that might be some kind of government secret or something- though why that would be on _Wyatt Newman's computer_ of all things was beyond him.

Barney shook the thoughts from his mind, running his hands through his hair as he thought about them again. They had complex emotions, reacted to stimuli, and each other- it was likely that they could think all on their own too- he got giddy just thinking about it.

His hands itched to look at their code again with this new knowledge, maybe pick around inside and see what exactly made them work- but with it missing from the NPC files, there wasn't much of a chance for him to do so.

Barney let out a shaky breath, adrenaline still coursing through his body as he grabbed his phone off the counter. "Wyatt you sneaky son of a bitch," he muttered to himself, moving to the man's contact- he hesitated. He hadn't wanted him to see them. Wyatt had kept their entire existence from him...tried to play it off as some fancy NPC's with weird, sketchy mods attached.

He'd probably be angry that Barney discovered them. 

Probably best not to kick the hornet's nest, then. 

He swiped up and tapped on Alyx's contact instead, holding the phone to his ear excitedly. When a groggy voice came through from the other side, Barney had to glance at the clock. It was noon- she should have been up by now.

"Alyx, dude, you are never going to believe what I found on Wyatt's computer," he said immediately, getting a sleepy sputter from the woman on the other end. 

"What? Barney- _what?_ Why are you looking through his computer?" she asked, only to shuffle and groan. "Actually, you know what? I don't wanna know _._ I don't _need_ to know what kind of porn Wyatt is into."

"It's not porn."

"See, you say that, and then you're gonna send me like tentacles or something. I don't care if you think it's 'art' or whatever. It's still porn, dude."

"No, that's not- Alyx, I'm not talking about porn _period_ , bro."

"Then what could possibly be of interest on his computer? C'mon, it can't have warranted you snooping through it." 

"Alyx, he has _AI_ on his computer."

There was more shuffling before Alyx replied, her voice less muffled. She must have sat up. "AI. Like, 'Alita Battle Angel' AI or 'AI Dungeon' AI?" she asked, audibly rubbing a hand over her face as she spoke.

"Alita Battle Angel AI. Like- they're _sentient_ , Alyx."

She snorted. "Sure," she replied, and Barney could almost see her shaking her head in disbelief. "I'll believe that when pigs start flying, dude," she continued, the sound of her desk chair rolling across concrete coming through the phone as she likely took a seat. "What makes you think they're sentient?" 

Barney wasn't sure how to explain it second-handedly; it was really something she needed to experience herself. "Can't you just trust me and get your ass over here? You can just take a look yourself," he said, leaning against the bar attached to the kitchen. 

"So now you want _me_ to rifle through Wyatt's computer too? Where is Wyatt at, anyway? Did he tell you you could do this? Let me talk to him," Alyx replied, her frustration growing over the line. Why wasn't she as excited about this as him?! Sure, she hadn't seen the freaky code first-hand like he had, but he wouldn't lie about something like this!

"Wyatt went back to Michigan- he's not here."

"What- why?!"

"His dad had a heart attack."

Alyx was quiet for a moment. "So Wyatt went home to spend time with his family, who just experienced a very traumatic event, mind you, and the first thing you do once he's gone is GO THROUGH HIS FUCKING COMPUTER?!" her voice rose to a yell, and Barney could hear her hands slam down on her desk. 

"Stay put. I'm on my way over to kick your idiotic ass, Barney."

With that, Alyx hung up- leaving Barney to blink. Well...at least she was coming over?

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn, this one had like...no science team in it, huh. Shit.
> 
> Sorry about that.
> 
> SUMMARY: Gordon decides, with his mother and little brother's encouragement, to come back home and help his friends in need. Meanwhile, Barney calls Alyx and tries to convince her of what exactly is hiding inside of his roommate's computer. Alyx is coming over.
> 
> Also omfggggg I love writing Alyx.


	14. Things Come To A Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alyx comes over.

\- - -

**With that, Alyx hung up- leaving Barney to blink. Well...at least she was coming over?**

\- - -

The moment that the device in G-Man's hand lit up, the Ai's were surrounding him with nervous excitement. The enigmatic businessman glanced down at the device in his hand, perking up slightly when a message came through. "Seems we've...gotten a response," he said, staring down at the phone.

The AI's gathered around, abandoning the things they'd been doing in the tense time as they waited for Gordon to respond. G-Man straightened, glancing around the collected group. "He says he's...on his way. And to text him next time..." he said, glancing back down at the device. "And provided his number."

"...W? Gordon signed this with a W," Dr. Coomer said, furrowing his brow in thought as he looked at the phone from G-Man's side. "Is..."

Benry sighed. "Gangster Man," he said, glancing towards the G-Man. "That's Gordo...isn't it? The 'W'... _Wyatt_. Feetman's real name is Wyatt, isn't it?" he asked, getting a sigh from the man in response. 

"...Yes. Yes, he is."

Bubby scoffed, the corners of his mouth curling up in a sneer. "Of course he is- another lie, then. We should expect it by this point-"

"Dr. Bubby, he's- he's coming back to help us..." Tommy said, wringing his hands. 

"Then what? Is he gonna lie to our faces some more? We- We don't know if this, this Wyatt character is actually going to _help_ us. Maybe he's just- just- just-"

"Bubby...you're talking like you don't know him."

"I- We- we don't! Not really! The man we know is _Gordon Freeman_ , not this- this- Wyatt person. He- I-" There was a shine to the old man's eyes. Dr. Coomer put a hand against his arm gently, gripping the fabric of his lab coat. 

"Bubby... He's... he's still Gordon. He may have a different name, yes, but I'm sure he's still the same temperamental, stubborn young man we've gotten to know," Coomer replied, giving him a worried look. "Does a name really change all that for you?"

"I- I don't _know_. How are we supposed to trust him? What else is he lying to us about? We don't even know if he's coming to help us or if he's going to join in!"

Benry swallowed thickly. Bubby was obviously scared- it was ironic that he was spitting out the same thoughts that had already run through Benry's head. He should probably do something to reassure him-

"M-Mr. Free- Mr. Newman wouldn't have told dad he was coming- coming back if he wasn't going to help us, Bubby," Tommy said, still wringing his hands. "He could have just- just ignored our message..."

"Mr. Newman may have...lied to you about his real identity... but I can assure you that if he... says he is on his way... then I am sure that it is in order to assist us," G-Man said, pocketing the device. "I believe that-" he paused, straightening slightly and furrowing his brow.

"Something's happening."

The G-Man glanced to the side and flicked his wrist, bringing a floating panel into existence. He was tense- _too_ tense. The AI's glanced towards the glowing panel, finding the image of Wyatt's room appearing on it. They stared with rapt attention as Barney came into view- followed by a new person.

\- - -

Barney leaned back against the couch, shutting his eyes as the sounds of his game echoed through the room. Waiting for Alyx had been a pain- he wasn't sure if she'd been serious when she said she was going to kick his ass, and he'd been itching to touch that code again, to look for the AI's- but he was going to wait.

He wanted her to see them for herself, wanted her to see what he saw, get excited like he was. This was real fucking AI for Christ's sake! This was _revolutionary!_

A game over screen popped up on the TV, pulling him from his thoughts with a groan. "Ugh, great..." he muttered with a roll of his eyes as he set the controller down on the coffee table. 

Barney would be lying to himself if he didn't say that there was a sliver of guilt that had burrowed its way into his heart. Alyx had gotten really upset, and it wasn't even her computer. What would Wyatt think? The guy was chill, but he'd obviously tried hard to keep this a secret from him.

He just didn't understand why.

He pushed the thoughts from his head and glanced towards the TV- the game on the screen was suddenly less interesting as he thought about it. Could he be in the wrong here?

No... this was bigger than him- this was something that could change the world and Wyatt was just being selfish about it...right? Something gnawed at his core the more he thought about it, causing him to chew on his lip in thought.

A sudden knocking on the door had him standing, glancing towards the door before it slammed open with a shove. Standing in the doorway was a woman with short, dark hair held back and out of her face by a headband, an angry glare on her face as she scanned the entrance for something.

She locked eyes with him and Barney could _feel_ the anger radiate off her- so he did the first thing that came to mind.

He booked it up the stairs.

"GET BACK HERE YOU FUCKING IDIOT!" Alyx yelled, slamming the door shut and taking off after him. Barney heard the tell-tale sound of a shoe being thrown in his direction and hitting the wall as he made it into Wyatt's room, spinning on his heel and holding his arms out in defense. 

"Wait wait wait wait!" He said, only to get another shoe thrown at him- this time hitting him square in the head. He winced as the sneaker bounced off his brow, bringing a hand up to his head in pain as Alyx scooped it up off the floor and readied it as a weapon. "Alyx, please, come on, just hear me out!" he said, taking another couple of steps back and towards the bed.

"You are an absolute asshole Barney! I am going to crucify you!!" Alyx replied, rage burning in her eyes as she raised the shoe.

"Will you just look!? They're amazing!"

"I don't give a shit if there are _nuclear launch codes_ on there, Barney! It doesn't make it okay for you to snoop through Wyatt's god-damn computer!" she yelled angrily.

Barney glanced towards the computer in question, his eyes widening at the sight of the glowing green light coming from the webcam. He shot a pointed finger out at it, stammering as he looked between the computer and Alyx. "Look- Look, they're- they're watching us right now!"

This only served to make Alyx even angrier. "A busted webcam doesn't mean there's fucking AI on the computer! Stop trying to change the subject, dude!" she said, grip tightening on the shoe in her hand as Barney took a step towards the computer. 

"If you would just let me show you-"

"Get away from it you fucking idiot!"

Barney had already sat down in the chair, bringing the computer screen to life and causing panic to ripple through the unseen AI inside. Alyx growled, smacking him hard with the sneaker. He flinched, trying to ignore the pain welling in his shoulder as she continued to smack him. "Look, just let me- let me show you this-"

Alyx's attack suddenly stopped as she pulled her shoe back on and started digging through her messenger bag. "You know what- no. I'm- I'm calling Wyatt," she said, managing to pull out her phone and shake her head at the man. "Can't fucking believe you-"

The sudden slamming of the front door downstairs caused both of them to pause. Alyx furrowed her brow and glanced down at Wyatt's contact, her thumb hovering over the call button as she glanced towards Barney. He'd stopped his furious typing to blink in the direction of the sound.

"What the-"

The familiar creak of rapid footsteps coming up the stairs had Barney tensing. 

_"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM THEM!"_ Wyatt yelled, coming around the corner with a wooden bat in his hands. Rage burned in his eyes as he stood in the doorway, glaring bullets at Barney- if looks could kill, he'd be a dead man ten times over. Wyatt's mouth curled into a snarl at the sight of Barney sitting at his desk, eyes widening as he readied the weapon.

Barney was quick to stand and back away from it, hands out placatingly as Wyatt came closer. "You get your fucking hands away from my computer RIGHT FUCKING NOW," he yelled, raising the bat to swing. "If you fucking hurt them I swear to god, Barney-" his voice cracked.

"I _won't_ be responsible for what I do to you." 

Wyatt shoved the end of the bat into barney's chest, causing him to stumble backward slightly towards the bed. "I should beat your fucking head in for going through my computer and- and scaring them shitless," he said, swallowing thickly. "Fuckin- God knows that's what Bubby would want me to do."

"I- W-Wyatt-"

Wyatt chewed on the inside of his cheek shaking his head at the man. "You betrayed my god damn trust, Barney. You have no idea how fucking disappointed I am to have to come back here because _you_ are putting my FRIENDS LIVES IN DANGER!" he voice rose to a yell once more, and he turned away from Barney, taking an angry, wild swing to the air out of frustration.

"I should be spending time with my dad but now I have to be _here_ cause you don't know how to act!"

Alyx put a hand on his shoulder. "I was gonna call you..." she said slowly, concern and confusion evident in her eyes. "I...look, Wyatt, I don't know what's going on-"

"So they _are_ AI-" Barney said, only to snap his mouth shut when Wyatt raised the bat again. Barney clenched a hand at his side, reaching with the other out towards the slightly shorter man. "Dude, I-"

Wyatt shifted the bat to one hand, reared back, and hooked a punch right into Barney's nose. It had the larger man stumbling backward with a grunt, falling onto the bed and left Wyatt's knuckles bruising and tears forming in his eyes- he rubbed his free hand down his face and sniffed. 

_"Get out of my room,"_ he said angrily, watching as Barney picked himself up shakily, hand to his nose as blood trickled downward and coated the edge of his mouth. He lowered his gaze, leaving the room without another word and closing the door behind him. 

Once he was gone, the adrenaline drained out of Wyatt like a leaky balloon. He dropped the bat, letting it clatter to the floor as he swayed on his feet. Alyx was at his side in an instant, wrapping an arm around him to stabilize him and lead him towards the bed. He was shaky and cold, and couldn't stop the tears that came to his eyes.

It was just too much.

"I- I-" he tried to speak, his voice cracking as he gripped the edge of the bed tightly. Alyx took a seat beside him, rubbing her hand along his back gently as he did his best not to have a full breakdown. "I didn't want it to be true... I trusted him- him not to- to look through it..." he said, shaking his head as he spoke.

"I shoulda fuckin' known..."

He crumpled forward, hiding his face in his hands. "I can't lose them..." he said, his voice muffled by his palms. "Alyx I can't... they're- they're like family to me..." he muttered, tears trailing down his cheeks as Alyx rubbed his back gently. 

She glanced towards the computer, tilting her head at the glowing webcam pointed right at them. She dropped her gaze in thought, swallowing thickly before looking back towards Wyatt. 

"So there _is_ AI on your computer, then." 

She could feel him tense before he let out a shaky sigh.

"...Yeah..."

There was a pause, a brief moment of silence as she took this information in- no wonder Barney had been so hell-bent on showing her. Admittedly, she'd thought he'd been pulling her leg when Barney had said he'd found sentient AI, and had just let anger take over when he'd said he'd gone through Wyatt's computer to find them.

But no one got this angry about someone else going through their computer- not unless there was something that was really important to them on there.

"Do...do they have names?" she asked, tilting her head slightly. If they were sentient, maybe they had names. That tracked, right?

A watery chuckle came from Wyatt as he lifted his head and glanced up at her. "Yeah- yeah, they do... and some of them are _terrible_ ," he said with a grin, causing the woman to smile back. "Uh," he continued, bringing a hand up to wipe at his eye.

"There's Dr. Coomer, Bubby, Darnold, and Tommy, they're all scientists... There's Benry, he's a weird, idiotic security guard who I'm pretty sure was also Forzen, a military grunt, and was just fucking with us for a while there, there's Sunkist the immortal dog, and uh, G-Man, I guess." 

"Wait, wait," Alyx said, furrowing her brow at him in confusion. " _G-Man._ Like- like Half-Life G-Man?" she asked with a disbelieving grin. There was no way, right?

Wyatt nodded his head, still wiping his eyes. "Yeah... he's actually alright, I guess. Likes to push buttons and threaten people...but I can tell he's just doing what he thinks is best to protect the other AI's."

"What _about_ the others? Do they have personalities? Like, do they- do they react to one another? How do they do in conflicting situations? Do you think they can feel pain? What if they-"

"Alyx," Wyatt interrupted her as she got more and more excited and started to ramble.

"Ah- uh, sorry. Um... what are they like?" she settled for that. Wyatt had called them family... it was obvious that he cared about them, so maybe he'd tell her what they were like and she could get to know more about them that way. She was still trying to comprehend the fact that this could even be real- better to let Wyatt explain than to take things into her own hands.

Better than how Barney went about it, the fuckin' idiot.

"Oh, uh, yeah, sure. They're-" he chuckled. "Honestly, they're insane... but in a good way, you know? They're basically a bunch of murder hobos in a DND campaign and I honestly wouldn't have it any other way," Wyatt said, sitting up slightly as he spoke. 

"So uh, I guess the first person I should tell you about is Tommy..." he said, a grin appearing on his face as he told the woman about the lanky man, unaware of the group listening and watching in stunned silence.

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yooooo tell me what you thought. You think Wyatt should have beat Barney up with the bat or nah?
> 
> Comments are what I live for, my dudes.


	15. A Crash Course In Friendship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hmm... Wyatt, you really like those guys, Dontcha?

\- - -

**"So uh, I guess the first person I should tell you about is Tommy..." he said, a grin appearing on his face as he told the woman about the lanky man, unaware of the group listening and watching in stunned silence.**

\- - -

"So like, while Tommy has terrible trigger safety but has the biggest heart you'll ever see, Darnold is so skittish sometimes I feel the guy might be scared of his own shadow," Wyatt explained, happy to talk about his friends so openly to someone else.

"I mean he's been getting way better since we got him out of the game- guy found a lucky slime and was just hangin' out with it for a good hour the other day, and I'm pretty sure he's told me before that he's scared of cats, so..." he trailed off with a grin and a shake of his head.

"Dr. Coomer is like, peak grandpa vibes- he's a caring old man with the uncanny ability to freak you the hell out one minute and then give you a reassuring hug the next. He's wild and violent- though they're _all_ violent, and he likes to show off how hard he can punch things...he talked about travel once, wistfully. If there was some kind of like, cruise simulator I'd pay good money for it just to put them all inside, ya know?"

Alyx grinned, nodding her head as Wyatt gushed about the AI's. He couldn't have been happier to talk about them- his eyes were practically sparkling with delight.

"Oh, and Bubby- he's basically like, Coomer's right-hand man. The two are _inseparable!_ Bubby's the pyro of the group so, you know, whenever something catches aflame usually you can look at him. He'll deny it of course, and probably call you a name in the process, but that's part of the charm that makes him Bubby _,"_ he explained with a fond grin. "He's..." he nodded slowly in thought. 

"We had some rough patches..." he said, bringing a hand up to rub the scar around his arm absently. Alyx furrowed her brow at the sight, grabbing his arm and bringing it up to look at it.

"What's this?" she asked, her tone a mixture of threat and concern, as if she would call the ambulance on him if she thought he needed some kind of help. "You didn't have this a month ago..." she continued, turning his arm over in her hand and staring at the gnarly pink scar that wrapped around his forearm. 

Wyatt swallowed thickly, pulling it from her grasp gently. "I uh...it's...from the game," he said, bringing his other hand up to rub the back of his neck. "Like I said...rough patches, ya know? They uh...he and Benry cut off my- G-Gordon's-" he sighed. "The hand was cut off. That translated to this nasty scar."

"...how?" Alyx asked, her eyes filling fully with concern. "Wyatt that- that' not possible. How- this..." she brought a hand up to her mouth in shock, causing the man to chuckle. 

"I have no idea... it's best not to think about it too hard." He said, dropping his gaze. "I don't like to think about it anyway."

"I'm sorry, Wyatt."

"It's fine... I've forgiven him."

"Why don't you keep going? That can't be all of them."

"Right- uh, there's just one left...Benry," Wyatt shook his head with a small, tired grin. "Benry..." he reiterated. "He's...how do I put this..." he landed back on his arms, pillowing his weight against his mattress. "He's a real wild card. He's- or I guess I should say _was_ a security guard. Don't think he's an AI though. He's probably some kind of virus or something," he joked, grinning towards Alyx as he spoke.

"He's a pain in the ass is what he _really_ is. He uh, he was the big bad plot twist at the end of the game... but..." he rolled his shoulder. "I mean, he made it pretty obvious that he didn't wanna be. Sure, the guy was annoying and probably nuts but..." he sat up slightly.

"Looking back all I can see is all the times he just tried to make me laugh. Sure, it was mostly by annoying the hell outta me, but after getting to know him, I realize that that's just...how Benry operates."

"Sounds like someone's got a crush," Alyx teased, getting a snort from Wyatt. 

"Yeah, no. I like the guy, but not like that. We may have flirted but Barney and I flirt too- it doesn't mean anything." 

"I think I'd have to tease you mercilessly if you were in love with an AI."

"I'd let you- I've got a lot of practice being teased now," he smirked. 

Silence filled the air as the chuckled died off, causing Wyatt to glance around the room awkwardly. He and Alyx were friends, sure, but it was more through their shared association with Barney than anything else. She was in college with the bigger man, and Wyatt- 

Well, you didn't need a degree to stream video games on the internet. 

He sighed softly, leaning back on his arms as he looked up towards the ceiling. "In all honesty..." he said, chewing on his bottom lip in thought as he glanced towards Alyx. "They're like family. I'd do anything for 'em."

He chuckled, bringing a hand up to hold up a finger. " _Almost_ anything," he corrected, getting a laugh from the woman beside him.

"I can tell- you talk about them like you've known them for years, Wyatt. Like you grew up together or something," Alyx replied with a smile.

Wyatt shook his head, glancing around the room and towards the computer, pausing at the sight of the glowing green light on top of the webcam. He inwardly slapped himself and felt his cheeks heat up- they had to have heard all that. Wyatt blinked slowly, sighing as he brought a hand up to rub at his face. They were going to tease him mercilessly for this, he just knew it.

The dropped his head and Alyx glanced at him with a furrowed brow. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing... just thinking about the fact that these guys are going to make fun of me for all that," he said, pointing lazily towards the webcam. "They're watching us," he said, glancing back towards the camera. " _Spying_ ," he said pointedly, though his mouth was turned up in a tired grin.

The webcam light suddenly blinked off, pulling a chuckle from the young man as he stood. He glanced back at Alyx, grin unwavering as he looked at her.

She'd listened to him- really listened. She didn't judge, didn't pry... and she'd tried to protect the AI, even if she hadn't realized it. 

He chewed the inside of his cheek in thought for a moment, glancing towards the computer before looking back towards Alyx as an idea came to his mind, causing him to grin.

"You wanna meet' em?"

\- - -

Alyx watched as Wyatt fumbled with the cords attached to the computer, glancing down at the VR helmet as he handed it to her. It was a much older, much bulkier version than the man's usual one, _(the VR equivalent of the second player's crappy controller, she realized)_ but he explained that it would be better if she was in VR when she met them, so she'd go with it for now.

"Alright," Wyatt said, pulling up the Slime Rancher screen. Alyx furrowed her brow at the sight- wait, weren't these Half-Life AI's? Why was he pulling up Slime Rancher? "'Let's get it," he said with a shit-eating grin before pulling his own headset on.

He stood and pushed his chair out of the way blindly before glancing her way- or, as close as he could come since he couldn't actually see her. "Alyx, come on, put your headset on so I can start the game," he said with a smile.

She shook her head with a sigh, glancing towards the bedroom door before pulling on the headset. She blinked hard as Wyatt started the game, her vision going white before colors bloomed to life around her. Alyx glanced around in awe- VR wasn't something she'd ever had much experience with, so it amazed her every time.

She glanced towards Wyatt, who, for some reason, looked like Gordon Freeman. His model was that same as Gordon's, though he had his unique curly hair pulled back into a ponytail and a less bulky-looking suit that couldn't quite be called a HEV suit but was close enough.

Wyatt was watching her with a large smile, a giddiness on his face that she hadn't seen there in a long time. She glanced just over his shoulder to find a group of people inn lab coats barrelling towards them, causing her eyes to widen and to instinctively take a step back.

"What's up? You okay-GAH!"

Wyatt was suddenly tackled by the group, sending him tumbling to the ground and shocking the daylights out of Alyx. That shouldn't have been possible. Wyatt grunted, the sound turning into a laugh as the group burst into conversation as they piled up on top of the young man. 

"Mr. Fr- Newman we watched you defend Us!" Tommy said with wide eyes as he hugged the younger man's midsection, making him wheeze. He was pulled into another hug by Dr. Coomer, who squeezed him even higher with a loud and boisterous "HELLO, GORDON!". 

Wyatt chuckled as the group wrapped themselves around him in a tight hug, talking over one another in a cacophony of voices that made it impossible to figure out just what was being said. 

"That right hook you threw was perfect form!! Right to the ol' kisser!" Coomer said excitedly, raising an arm and posing with a hand on his bicep as he sat on the ground next to Bubby. Bubby nodded, a fire lighting in his eyes as he spoke.

"You actually did something badass- the bastard deserved the bat, but a punch is good too...for now," he said with a grin, getting a laugh out of the younger man. Of course- he'd called it.

"I can't believe you defended us so fiercely, Dr. Newman," Darnold added, throwing him for a loop. They had started calling him by his real name... did G-Man tell them? Maybe they overheard something from when they were spying? Either way, they didn't seem too bothered by it.

"why wouldn't I? You guys are my friends," he said with a grin, only to be forced into another tight group hug. 

"Top 10 badass Gordon Feetman moments," Benry said with a smirk, putting a hand on Wyatt's head and patting it. "She defended us too ya know- hit your roommate with a shoe. It was a- She was straight pog," he said with a grin, glancing towards Alyx.

Shit- Wyatt had almost forgotten about her.

"Oh right- uh," Wyatt pulled himself away from the group hug, stumbling over his own feet and barely managing to stay standing up. He glanced back towards the group, finding them watching him with smirks and grins. 

"Science team, this is Alyx Vance. Alyx, meet the science team."

The woman blinked, looking from Wyatt to the AI's with a smile. "It's- uh, nice to meet you?" she said, giving the programs a small wave. "I- uh- I don't exactly know..." Tommy stood up and walked towards her, causing the woman to tense slightly. 

He thrust out a hand, his palm open and a grin on his face as he looked her in the eyes. "I'm Tommy Coolatta! It's n-nice to meet you, Miss Vance," he said, causing Alyx to blink and to take his hand slowly. He suddenly pulled her into a tight hug, causing her to squeak in surprise.

"Thank you for defending us," he said, loosening his grip and pulling back slightly. "It means a lot."

"I've never seen a shoe so expertly wielded, my dear!" Dr. Coomer added as he came closer, Bubby following close behind.

"Not to mention that fury- you shoulda hit him harder," Bubby added with a smirk as Darnold joined them in crowding around the woman.

While they were busy with that, Wyatt was left to shake his head and chuckle at the group. He let out a soft sigh, thankful that they were okay, even if it was just for a little while. He'd made the right choice for once, it felt like, and he smiled to himself at the thought.

"Thank you...for, coming back..." G-Man said from just over his shoulder, causing him to jump. He glanced back with wide eyes, clutching hi chest slightly as his heart tried to leap out off his ribcage. 

"Damnit G-Man- you gotta stop sneaking up on me like that..." he said with a shake of his head.

"My...apologies, Mr. Newman," G-Man replied, his gaze drifting towards the group that had launched into a discussion with their new friend before snapping back towards their 'main player' as it were. "I imply wanted to...thank you... for assisting us. I know that you had... family matters... that you'd rather be...attending to."

Wyatt brought a hand up to rub the back of his neck. "Yeah...I'm- I'm sure my dad'll be okay, though. He's- he's a tough guy..." he said, hoping that his mom was right. He chewed on his lip in thought, a tense silencing between the pair filling the air before G-Man cleared his throat.

"What do you plan to...do... about your...roommate?" he asked, gaze moving back towards the other AI's. Wyatt dropped his own gaze to the lilac ground beneath him. If he was honest, he didn't _have_ a plan. What was he _supposed_ to do? Maybe he could talk it out? Barney was so thick-headed though, there was no guarantee it'd get through to him.

"I...don't know," he sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets with a shake of his head. "If you got any ideas, feel free to send 'em my way."

"Unfortunately, Mr. Newman, I have it on...good authority... that you wouldn't appreciate any...plans... I would 'send your way', as it were."

Wyatt chuckled. "I assumed as much."

"You'll- You'll figure it out," G-Man said, placing a firm hand on his shoulder in what Wyatt could only guess was supposed to be some form of comfort.

"I hope so, Mr. Coolatta," he said, glancing back towards the group as they burst into laughter.

"For their sakes."

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GIMME DEM COMMENTS BABEYYYY
> 
> Also sorry to all you Frenrey shippers out there- but pining's all you get. Hopefully I've made it where it could be seen as either friendly OR romantic, so....


	16. The World Keeps Spinnin'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe we should check back in with Barney. Oh wait, whatcha got there Wyatt?

\- - -

**"For their sakes."**

\- - -

Barney sat on the floor, at the foot of his bed, clutching his nose in the darkness of his bedroom. The center of his face ached as he shifted the icepack against it, wincing as pain flared out from his nose. 

Wyatt had a mean right hook- Barney hadn't realized he had it in him. 

He swallowed thickly and sighed, leaning his head back against the edge of his bed as his thoughts wandered. Alyx had yet to leave- she hadn't even left Wyat's room yet. He chewed on his lip in thought, letting out a shaky breath as the plastic glow in the dark stars that Wyatt had slapped onto his ceiling forever ago glowed dimly above him.

Had he made a major mistake with this?

Wyatt... Wyatt wasn't an angry guy. Sure, he had a short temper, but he only got mad with good reason. He was overprotective and foolhardy, but he wasn't an idiot. Barney glanced towards the door, staring at the stripe of light that came through from under the door itself.

He closed his eyes, shaking his head at his actions. Maybe- maybe he _had_ been wrong. He'd jumped to conclusions... he'd betrayed Wyatt's trust, went through his computer- Wyatt had never done anything even remotely similar to _him_. 

Barney dropped the icepack into his lap with a groan. "I didn't...think..." he muttered to himself, shaking his head at the thoughts rushing through his head. He'd been so excited, so blinded by the fact that these AI were sentient- he'd lost himself in that fact and completely disregarded Wyatt's privacy. 

"He'd never do that to you, dumbass..." he muttered to himself, grabbing another tissue when he felt liquid trickle down from his nostril. 

A part of him was still screaming that this wasn't something that should have been hidden from him, but regardless of how he felt about that- he'd crossed a line with that stunt.

"Well I didn't- didn't actually do anything with the AI programs- maybe... maybe Wyatt could give me a copy to dissect, then he could keep his copy and I could have one of my own-"

"You don't... _get it_... do you, Mr. Calhoun?"

The sudden sound of a voice in his room had Barney tensing, eyes snapping open and glancing around the darkness- only to find his own computer up and running with a white screen. He blinked, glancing around the room to find himself still alone- was he being haunted?!

Wh-what-" he said with a shaky voice, gripping his ice pack tightly and pressing himself against the wall and as far away from the glowing computer screen as he could. "Are- are you a ghost?" he asked slowly, only to get a slow, dry, forced chuckle in response. 

The sound was coming out of his speakers... 

He swallowed thickly, clambering up to his feet. That was no ghost. "I am... anything _but_... Mr. Calhoun," the voice said as Barney stared at the screen. He took a tentative step closer, blinking hard against the bright light in the otherwise dark room. 

"Then- then who are you?" He had a feeling he already knew, but he had to be sure. This- this wasn't some trick, was it?

"I think you already... know the answer, to that particular... question."

Barney swallowed thickly and took a seat in his desk chair, reaching out to wiggle his mouse. A cursor didn't appear on the screen- it just stayed the same, unblinking white.

"Wh- what were you saying about me-" he lifted his hand off the mouse. "-about me not understanding?"

"Allow me to explain..."

\- - -

Wyatt chuckled and shook his head as he pulled off the headset, rolling his eyes as the AI's continued to poke fun at him for being 'soft for them' and 'overly sentimental'. He knew they didn't mean it- they probably really appreciated it.

"I'll be back, and you can make fun of me after," he said with a grin before pulling his headset off and pressing a button on the side to send it into standby. "I'm just getting a drink," he said as he glanced towards Alyx, getting a thumbs up in response as Dr. Coomer continued to give her pointers on her boxing stance. 

He couldn't hear the old man, but he could tell by the way Alyx's arms would suddenly be jerked into place or nudged slightly that that was what Coomer was doing. He shook his head at the action and headed for the door, opening it and walking down the stairs.

G-Man had left them a while before the rest of the group started teasing him, something about some kind of urgent business he needed to take care of- it made Wyatt feel better to think about that than to think about the possibility of running into his roommate in the kitchen.

Please don't be there, please don't be there- look at your phone, even if he is in there, that gives you an excuse not to look at him-

He pulled out the sleek device, pausing at the bottom of the stairs and furrowing his brow at the sight of three missed calls from his mother, along with a text that told him to call her. He couldn't stop the skip of his heart as he gripped the railing tightly.

This- this was a good sign, right? His father was probably being discharged from the hospital and his mother wanted him to talk to the old man and keep him busy on the drive home. Yeah, yeah that's it- he swallowed thickly.

His hands were trembling as he pulled up his mother's contact, feet moving on their own as he came into the kitchen. It was empty. He put the device to his ear, and the moments it took to ring felt like hours. 

"Hey, mom? I got your call. Everything okay?"

His mother's voice was shaky. He could hear her uneven breaths over the phone. 

His nose started burning before she even spoke.

A numb buzzing sensation washed over him as the burning sensation moved to just under his eyes. 

The room felt like it was spinning.

He felt light-headed.

He couldn't breathe. 

Tears spilled down his cheeks, leaving salty tracks in their wake. He shook his head slowly, his grip tightening on the phone in his hand as he drew in a shaky, watery gasp.

**"He- He's gone, honey... I'm so- I'm so sorry..."**

Did someone flip his house on its head?

Oh, wait... no...no that was just _him_.

He was falling. 

The phone clattered to the tile floor below, glass shattering as Wyatt followed suit. 

\- - -

Alyx couldn't help but laugh as she watched Benry take off his helmet, only to reveal another, identical helmet underneath, and stack it on top of the 'pyramid' of helmets he was creating. It was less of a pyramid and more of a messy pile, but he seemed proud of it- and he was placing each helmet with immense care.

It all came tumbling down, however, when Bubby barrelled through it in a panic, screaming as he ran from Dr. Coomer- he'd ripped his sleeves off a while ago and was currently chasing the twig of an old man happily, shouting about showing him what a true punch feels like. Benry blinked at the ruined pile of helmets with a pout, dropping his head in disappointment and plopping onto the ground, causing Alyx to laugh again.

"What's so funny, Miss Vance?" Tommy asked as he came over with Darnold in tow, each man holding a soda in one hand. Alyx wanted to question where they could have possibly gotten those from, but Wyatt had warned her it was better not to think about it- so she didn't. Even though she really really wanted to.

"Oh, uh, nothing," she said from her spot on the ground, picking herself up and dusting off her jeans. "I was just watching Benrey," she said, only for the man in question to glance up.

"It's Benry," he said as he picked up the helmets one by one and slid them onto his head. "You're giving it an extra e."

"I- what?" Alyx asked with a slightly nervous chuckle as Benry picked up another helmet and slotted it onto his head. "I'm not- I'm not spelling out anything, Benrey," she tried, only for the man to furrow his brow.

"You keep misspelling it," he grumbled, picking up the last of the helmets and plopping it on his head. "Nevermind, what're we talkin' about?"

Tommy glanced towards Darnold before looking back towards Alyx. "Well, we were actually wanting to- to talk to miss Vance here," Tommy replied, wringing his hands as he spoke. Darnold gave him a reassuring pat on the arm, and he let out a breath. 

"We uh- we think we might have thought of a way to- to get us out into the r-real world," he said with a grin. 

Alyx blinked- that wasn't possible, they were AI. _Computer Programs._ They'd need some kind of host body, some kind of android that _definitely_ didn't exist and even if it _did_ exist, would probably be in some heavily guarded, top-secret place and would never see the light of day.

"I- I don't understand," she said, shaking her head at the pair in front of her. "How could that be even remotely possible?"

"There are no predetermined deaths," Benry said, his tone of voice making it sound like he was quoting a movie or something. 

"It should actually be really simple, Miss Vance, all that needs to happen is-"

Darnold was cut off by the sudden sound of a door slamming open. Alyx furrowed her bro and tensed on instinct, pulling off the headset to face whatever the hell was outside of the game. She glanced towards the doorway to Wyatt's room to find Barney standing there, with Wyatt in his arms. 

He was unconscious.

"I- h-he- I came out of my room cause I heard a- a loud thud and he was on the kitchen floor- Alyx- I don't-" it was obvious he was close to panicking. She gestured for him to lay the man down on his bed before moving towards his head.

"Do you know if he hit his head?" she asked, getting between Barney and Wyatt.

"I- I don't know. I just walked in after I heard something crash onto the floor," Barney replied anxiously. She glanced back at him, only to get an actual look at the man's nose- Wyatt had really done a number on him. She blinked, shaking the thought from her head. 

"Go downstairs and get me something for his head- keep your cool. Why- why is he still knocked out? He should have come to already, right?" she said, turning her attention back towards Wyatt. Neither of the students noticed the webcam light flicking on, nor did they see the webcam itself slowly turning to look at the bed. 

Barney nodded and dug something out of his pocket. "Here's his phone- it uh, it was beside him in the kitchen," he said, handing Alyx the device before leaving the room hastily and booking it down the stairs.

Alyx glanced towards the door, only for the light of the webcam to catch her attention. "I'm- I'm sure he's fine, guys," she said, moving her hair out of her face as she positioned some pillows under Wyatt's head. "Wake up, buddy, c'mon," she patted his cheek lightly, trying to coax him out of whatever kind of sleep he was in, to no avail. 

She swallowed thickly, letting out a shaky breath as she brought a hand up to her face. She was doing her best not to panic, but that wasn't easy when your friend was passed out on the floor in front of you. "Wyatt, please wake up, you gotta wake up," she tried again, not even sure if the man could hear her. 

"Christ, why didn't I take those nursing classes," she breathed, glancing towards Wyatt's phone, only to find it lighting up with his mother's number. She blinked, glancing back towards Wyatt before picking up the cracked phone. The call ended without her answering it, displaying the amount of missed calls he now had- it was up to 9. 

"Is he awake?" Barney asked from the doorway, worry in his eyes and various supplies in his arms. "Here," he said when Alyx shook her head, coming closer and setting the things he'd gathered on the floor. "You propped his head up- good," he said, shuffling closer and causing Alyx to tense slightly. 

Barney lifted Wyatt's head gently, leaning forward to get a look at the back of his head. "Doesn't look like he's bleeding or swollen, so that's pog," he said, only for his words to suddenly remind Alyx of what the man did for a job. He was a part-time security guard at a hospital...of course, he'd picked some things up- not to mention the certifications he must have had to have. 

"I'm gonna put this rag on his head, can you. hand me it? It's on the pitcher," he said, gesturing towards the pitcher of water he'd brought in with a rag sitting on the rim. She wrung out the cloth and handed it to him, and Barney folded it before setting it on Wyatt's head.

Alyx glanced back towards the computer- the webcam was still on. There was no telling how the AI's felt about this. She glanced back towards Wyatt and Barney, the latter of which had folded his legs beneath him to sit lotus style beside the smaller man.

He was touching his nose gingerly, wincing whenever he touched it too hard. Alyx shook her head at the man- even with whatever certification he had, he was still an idiot sometimes.

"You okay...?" she asked after a moment, needing something, _anything_ to break the tense silence of the room. "Your nose, I mean," she clarified when he glanced towards her.

Barney rolled his shoulder. "M' fine. Didn't know he could punch that hard." 

Alyx chuckled, nodding her head slowly. "Yeah...you really pissed him off."

"Yeah... still don't get why, though. I mean, yeah obviously I went through his computer, but he was the one hiding fully realized AI from me. If anyone should be mad, it's me. Think of the badass things these programs could do if we took them apart and saw what made 'em tick."

Alyx furrowed her brow, the thought of the Science Team being torn apart giving her an uneasy, nauseous feeling in her stomach. She blinked- this must have been how Wyatt had felt tenfold when he'd discovered Barney so close to hurting his friends...

She glanced up at Barney- he didn't understand. He didn't get that the AI's weren't just sentient, they were _alive_. He saw them as programs, as bits and byte meant to perform complex tasks and nothing more. He didn't know about their quirks, their mannerisms, their likes or dislikes- Wyatt knew it all... and Alyx was beginning to understand.

"They're...they're not just programs, Barney," she said after a moment, dropping her gaze from the man. She shook her head slowly when he glanced towards her. "You don't- you don't get it," she continued, swallowing thickly. Sure, she barely got it herself, but if she could understand, so could he, right?

"They literally are, though. Sure, they're sentient, but they're still AI. It's not like they have feelings or whatever."

Alyx shook her head at him. "No, Barney you- they...you have to understand that-"

Wyatt stirred, causing Alyx to snap her mouth shut and glance down at him. "Wyatt?" she said a moment later, worry lacing her voice. The smaller man groaned, his eyes slowly blinking open with a wince. 

"Wha...what happened...?" he mumbled, glancing up and between Barney and Alyx. "What's...." he glared at Barney. "What're you doin' in here..." he said, sneering weakly towards the bigger man. 

"I was just-"

"Get out," Wyatt growled, anger igniting in his eyes as he stared Barney down. "Out of my f-fucking room, Barney," he spat, sitting up slightly against the pillows. Barney sighed and stood, casting a glance towards Alyx before leaving the room and closing the door behind him. 

Wyatt slumped against the pillow, glancing back towards Alyx with exhaustion in his eyes. "What-" he was cut off by his phone buzzing beside him again, causing Wyatt to glance down at the device and pick it up. He looked at the screen. and his eyes widened slightly, swallowing thickly as tears sprung to his eyes. 

"Wyatt, are you okay?"

"I-" he dropped the phone, bringing a hand up to guard his eyes as he crumpled in on himself. "I remember what happened..." he muttered before sniffling. 

"What...what is it?"

The man glanced up at her as fat tears trailed slowly down his cheeks.

"My dad's dead."

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whatcha think? Painful enough? Leave me a comment and let me know. >:)


	17. Bits And Bytes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things aren't going well for this group...I wonder how the Ai are feeling about all this?

\- - -

**"My dad's dead."**

\- - -

The AI's were sent into a panicked frenzy when Alyx suddenly pulled her headset off and tossed it to the side, causing the same strange, grainy, black and white image of Wyatt's room from before to appear in the area. The group took a collective step away from it, staring wide-eyed as Barney stood in the doorway with Wyatt in his arms. 

"He's got Feetman," Benry said, clenching his fists angrily as he glared at the grainy image of the man. 

"Wha- what's wrong with him?" Tommy asked, wringing his hands anxiously as Barney started to talk. The sound was garbled, making it next to impossible to understand what he was saying. Alyx said something back, shaking her head as Wyatt's roommate came further into the room.

"Hit him, Alyx- you still have your shoes," Bubby said with a sneer, glaring daggers at the much bigger man holding their friend and subsequentially setting him down against a horde of pillows. 

"I'd recommend...stepping away from that... and coming _this_ way if you wish to _actually_ understand what's...going on, gentlemen," the sudden sound of G-Man's voice said as it came from behind the group. The AI's glanced towards him as he flicked his wrist and pulled up a glowing panel that displayed Wyatt's room.

The group rushed over and G-Man took a step back, turning his attention back towards the small area of grainy, monochromatic graphics.

"Is- Is he okay?" Tommy asked worriedly as they watched Alyx tell Barney to go get something from downstairs.

"He looks to be unconscious- not good for your health, I'd think," Dr. Coomer said, eyes narrowed in an attempt to get a better look. "I do hope he's okay..."

"He _better_ be," Bubby added, watching worriedly from the shorter man's side.

"Why's he not moving? It's- it's not right. He's messed up. Somethin's wrong with his human code- his organ things," Benry said, brow furrowed in concern as he stared at Wyatt. "We gotta help him."

"Benry, we don't have a way to help him-" Bubby started to say, only for Darnold to hold up a tentative finger. The older man glanced towards him with a raised eyebrow, shutting his mouth and giving him a tired yet inquisitive look.

"What is it, Dr. Darnold?" Dr.Coomer asked.

"Well we- uh, that is, Tommy and myself," he said, glancing up at the taller man in the propeller hat, "We- uh, we think we _may_ have a way to get us out of the game and- and into the, um, the _real_ world, so to speak," he said with a nervous grin.

Berny furrowed his brow further. **"How?"** he asked, perhaps a little too harshly if everyone's attention snapping towards him was anything to go by. Tommy was still wringing his hands, swallowing thickly as he glanced towards the black and white image of Wyatt's room that his father was still inspecting.

"W-Well we thought about possibly u-using that thing..." he said, pointing towards the monochromatic area. "It's- it's a direct link to the outside world, created by the game itself and not by- by something inside..." G-Man glanced back towards the group, straightening and dusting off his suit before folding one arm behind him and using the other as he spoke.

"That wouldn't be _wise_ , Tommy," he said, casting a cursory glance towards the area. "It's likely that this... _theory_...of yours would result in your code being _corrupted_... rather than actually transporting you anywhere."

"H-How do you know?" Tommy asked worriedly.

"Call it a...hunch," G-Man replied.

Benry clenched his fists tightly at his sides, glancing between the enigmatic man and the monochromatic area. "Call it whatever you want, but it's not proof of anythin'. We- You don't _know_ if that thing's gonna do anything bad to us. Maybe you just don't want us leavin' the computer. Big Bad G-Man don't want the science team out in the real world?" he asked, his tone a mixture of accusing and mocking, despite the air of anxiety that surrounded him.

G-Man raised an eyebrow at him, seemingly unphased by the eldritch being's tone. "As I said...I have a hunch," he said, straightening his tie. "Best not to push the... _limits_ of this game more than our assistance here already does. It wasn't _built_... for more players than two."

Benry set his jaw. "But we're not gonna be _in_ the game if this works."

G-Man stared him down, piercing blue eyes looking into Benry's.

The security guard dropped his gaze with a huff.

"Hey you morons, Wyatt's waking up," Bubby said from where he and Dr. Coomer were still watching the panel from. Wyatt was stirring from his sleep, and Barney was close to his head. The group was tense at the sight of him so close to their de-facto leader, and Alyx glanced towards the camera as if trying to silently reassure the group. 

**"Wha...what happened...?"** Wyatt mumbled, and the group held their collective breath. he glanced up towards is roommate, and the group noticed a familiar spark of fire ignite in his eyes. **"What's...."** he started glaring at the bigger man. **"What're you doin' in here..."**

Barney started to try and defend himself, the ai's watching with rapt attention as Wyatt shut him down. Benry took a couple of steps back, away from the group as they watched Wyatt yell at Barney before being comforted by Alyx.

"Gotta- gotta help Feetman. Wyatt. Shortman, gotta help Shortman," Benry muttered to himself, glancing towards the fuzzy grey area once more. Anther cursory glance towards the Science Team, and he was making a mad dash for what he hoped could be some kind of portal for him.

Wyatt's words echoed out around him as his foot caught on a rock, causing the guard to stumble forward and go tumbling into the mass of pixilated code. 

**"My dad's dead."**

\- - -

Benry wasn't sure what it was like to lose a parent. He'd lost his left shoe once, but he doubted it was the same kind of feeling as frantically searching your dormitory for the missing object and panicking that the boss was gonna yell at you for being late again.

He'd never had a parent before-- none of them had...well, except for Tommy of course. They were video game characters, meant to interact with the player, each other, and the environment and nothing more. Them being sentient was something else entirely-- something that wasn't supposed to happen. Parents? Those were out of the question.

Sure, he assumed losing a parent was something bad- parents were like, the people that took care of babies and stuff. Fed 'em, cleaned em, taught 'em to read and play video games he assumed- but he wasn't sure exactly _how_ bad it was. 

When Shortman had reacted like he did when he'd lost his arm in the game, it'd confused the security guard. He'd thought it'd be some harmless prank- cut off the guy's arm as payback for the many times Gordon- er, Wyatt had shot him. He'd grow it back and then probably whack him a few ties as payback, and they'd move on. When he hadn't grown it back it'd confused the Hell out of him and he'd had to have a-way-longer-than-he'd-thought-it-was-going-to-be conversation with Dr. Coomer about human biology. 

Wait, what was he doing again?

Oh right-- he'd ignored G-Man's warning about this weird pixelated area and dived in head-first without thinking. Now he was... well, he wasn't sure exactly. It wasn't a void exactly- he knew what that felt like. This felt more like he was...suspended? Kinda? He didn't feel like he was floating, more like he was laying on something, but he couldn't move, and everything around him was dark. 

_"W...wha..."_

The sudden sound of a voice drifting through his ears caused Benry to furrow his brow. He strained towards it, or at least attempted to, since he wasn't exactly sure where it was coming from.

_"That's..."_

The voice was getting louder- it was one he recognized. That- that was Shortman's voice; he'd know it anywhere.

_"...no idea how he could...shouldn't be- this isn't-"_

Why was he confused at all anymore when it came to Benry? You'd think he'd get used to all of his glitchy, video-gamey goodness. Guess not. 

_"Benry, wake up. C'mon, man, you've never slept before, why are you starting now?"_

Wait, was _that_ was this was!? Well, no wonder he was confused! If this was what it was like when the others went to sleep, he might just do it more often. Now...how to wake up... 

The guard's eyes snapped open when water was suddenly splashed in his face, causing him to cough and sputter against the liquid. He blinked up at the sight of a young woman and man standing over him. One with her hair held back by a thick cloth headband, and the other-- a face he'd only seen through the screen. 

Wyatt blinked, and Benry only now noticed the tears still shining in his eyes. They were red and puffy, and his breathing kept hitching- he'd been crying. Hard. He was staring at Benry, and brought a hand up to maneuver around his glasses and wipe at his eyes. 

"Oh, Hey Feetman. Whatcha cryin' for? I got like, 30 more lives." 

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter, but I'm trying really hard to keep this thing going. I'm losing steam for this one majorly since I have anther fic in mind that I actually have everything planned out for (unlike this one where I am flying by the seat of my pants) so like, all of my motivation is to work on that one and leave this one in the dust...
> 
> hhhhhhhhhhh IDK. I don't wanna just like, level it at a cliff hanger, but every time I sit down to write I dread working on this one cause it's not much fun anymore. 
> 
> Like I said, IDK. 
> 
> I'll figure it out soon enough though.


End file.
